The actual number of Kyrgyzstan gambling halls is something in some dispute. As details from this state, out in the very most central section of Central Asia, can be awkward to get, this may not be all that astonishing. Whether there are 2 or three accredited gambling halls is the element at issue, perhaps not really the most earth-shaking piece of info that we do not have.
What certainly is accurate, as it is of most of the ex-Russian states, and certainly true of those located in Asia, is that there no doubt will be a lot more not allowed and underground gambling dens. The switch to legalized betting didn’t energize all the underground places to come out of the illegal into the legal. So, the bickering regarding the number of Kyrgyzstan’s gambling dens is a small one at best: how many accredited gambling halls is the element we’re seeking to reconcile here.
We understand that in Bishkek, the capital metropolis, there is the Casino Las Vegas (a remarkably original name, don’t you think?), which has both gaming tables and slot machine games. We will also see both the Casino Bishkek and the Xanadu Casino. The two of these have 26 slots and 11 table games, divided amongst roulette, chemin de fer, and poker. Given the remarkable similarity in the sq.ft. and layout of these 2 Kyrgyzstan casinos, it might be even more bizarre to find that the casinos are at the same location. This seems most strange, so we can no doubt determine that the list of Kyrgyzstan’s gambling dens, at least the authorized ones, ends at two casinos, one of them having altered their name a short while ago.
The nation, in common with nearly all of the ex-Soviet Union, has experienced something of a fast change to free-enterprise economy. The Wild East, you might say, to refer to the chaotic ways of the Wild West a century and a half ago.
Kyrgyzstan’s gambling dens are almost certainly worth going to, therefore, as a piece of social analysis, to see money being gambled as a type of collective one-upmanship, the aristocratic consumption that Thorstein Veblen wrote about in 19th century America.