The actual number of Kyrgyzstan gambling dens is a fact in a little doubt. As data from this state, out in the very remote interior part of Central Asia, tends to be difficult to get, this may not be all that astonishing. Regardless if there are two or 3 accredited gambling dens is the element at issue, maybe not in reality the most earth-shaking bit of data that we don’t have.
What will be true, as it is of the lion’s share of the old USSR states, and definitely true of those located in Asia, is that there will be a great many more illegal and backdoor gambling halls. The change to approved wagering didn’t drive all the former locations to come out of the illegal into the legal. So, the debate regarding the total amount of Kyrgyzstan’s casinos is a small one at most: how many authorized ones is the element we’re attempting to resolve here.
We understand that located in Bishkek, the capital metropolis, there is the Casino Las Vegas (a remarkably unique name, don’t you think?), which has both gaming tables and slot machines. We will also see both the Casino Bishkek and the Xanadu Casino. The two of these have 26 slot machine games and 11 table games, divided amongst roulette, chemin de fer, and poker. Given the amazing similarity in the square footage and layout of these two Kyrgyzstan gambling dens, it might be even more surprising to find that both share an address. This seems most confounding, so we can no doubt conclude that the list of Kyrgyzstan’s gambling dens, at least the authorized ones, stops at 2 casinos, one of them having changed their name not long ago.
The nation, in common with the majority of the ex-USSR, has undergone something of a fast adjustment to capitalism. The Wild East, you could say, to reference the chaotic ways of the Wild West a century and a half back.
Kyrgyzstan’s gambling halls are in reality worth checking out, therefore, as a piece of anthropological research, to see cash being bet as a form of social one-upmanship, the absolute consumption that Thorstein Veblen talked about in nineteeth century America.