[ English ]

The actual number of Kyrgyzstan casinos is something in some dispute. As information from this state, out in the very remote central part of Central Asia, tends to be awkward to receive, this might not be all that astonishing. Whether there are two or three legal gambling halls is the item at issue, perhaps not really the most earth-shattering bit of information that we do not have.

What no doubt will be correct, as it is of the majority of the ex-USSR states, and definitely true of those in Asia, is that there will be a great many more illegal and alternative gambling dens. The switch to acceptable gaming did not encourage all the underground locations to come from the dark into the light. So, the battle regarding the total amount of Kyrgyzstan’s casinos is a tiny one at most: how many legal gambling halls is the item we’re seeking to resolve here.

We know that located in Bishkek, the capital city, there is the Casino Las Vegas (a remarkably original title, don’t you think?), which has both table games and slots. We will additionally see both the Casino Bishkek and the Xanadu Casino. The pair of these offer 26 slot machines and 11 table games, divided amidst roulette, vingt-et-un, and poker. Given the amazing similarity in the size and floor plan of these two Kyrgyzstan gambling halls, it might be even more surprising to find that the casinos are at the same address. This seems most strange, so we can clearly conclude that the number of Kyrgyzstan’s gambling halls, at least the approved ones, ends at two casinos, one of them having adjusted their name recently.

The nation, in common with the majority of the ex-Soviet Union, has undergone something of a fast conversion to capitalistic system. The Wild East, you may say, to reference the lawless circumstances of the Wild West an aeon and a half ago.

Kyrgyzstan’s casinos are in fact worth going to, therefore, as a piece of social research, to see cash being wagered as a type of social one-upmanship, the absolute consumption that Thorstein Veblen wrote about in 19th century u.s.a..