The actual number of Kyrgyzstan gambling halls is something in some dispute. As info from this country, out in the very remote interior part of Central Asia, tends to be difficult to acquire, this might not be all that bizarre. Regardless if there are two or three accredited gambling halls is the element at issue, perhaps not really the most all-important piece of information that we do not have.
What certainly is true, as it is of many of the ex-Russian nations, and certainly true of those in Asia, is that there will be a good many more illegal and backdoor gambling dens. The switch to legalized gambling didn’t energize all the illegal gambling halls to come out of the dark into the light. So, the battle over the number of Kyrgyzstan’s casinos is a small one at most: how many authorized casinos is the item we’re attempting to reconcile here.
We know that 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 can also find both the Casino Bishkek and the Xanadu Casino. The pair of these have 26 slots and 11 gaming tables, divided between roulette, vingt-et-un, and poker. Given the remarkable similarity in the sq.ft. and layout of these 2 Kyrgyzstan gambling dens, it might be even more surprising to find that they are at the same address. This appears most astonishing, so we can clearly conclude that the number of Kyrgyzstan’s casinos, at least the legal ones, stops at 2 members, one of them having adjusted their name just a while ago.
The country, in common with practically all of the ex-Soviet Union, has undergone something of a rapid conversion to capitalism. The Wild East, you may say, to refer to the anarchical ways of the Wild West a century and a half ago.
Kyrgyzstan’s gambling dens are actually worth visiting, therefore, as a bit of social research, to see cash being played as a form of civil one-upmanship, the celebrated consumption that Thorstein Veblen spoke about in 19th century u.s..
