The actual number of Kyrgyzstan gambling halls is something in a little doubt. As data from this state, out in the very remote interior part of Central Asia, often is hard to achieve, this might not be all that astonishing. Whether there are 2 or three approved gambling dens is the item at issue, maybe not quite the most all-important piece of information that we don’t have.
What will be credible, as it is of the majority of the old Soviet states, and definitely truthful of those located in Asia, is that there certainly is a great many more not allowed and clandestine gambling dens. The adjustment to legalized gaming did not empower all the aforestated casinos to come away from the dark into the light. So, the controversy over the total number of Kyrgyzstan’s casinos is a small one at best: how many accredited gambling dens is the item we are trying to resolve here.
We know that in Bishkek, the capital city, there is the Casino Las Vegas (a remarkably unique title, don’t you think?), which has both table games and slots. We will additionally see both the Casino Bishkek and the Xanadu Casino. Each of these have 26 slots and 11 table games, split amongst roulette, vingt-et-un, and poker. Given the remarkable likeness in the square footage and setup of these 2 Kyrgyzstan gambling dens, it may be even more astonishing to see that they are at the same address. This seems most bewildering, so we can perhaps determine that the list of Kyrgyzstan’s casinos, at least the approved ones, ends at 2 members, 1 of them having adjusted their name a short while ago.
The state, in common with the majority of the ex-Soviet Union, has undergone something of a fast adjustment to free-enterprise economy. The Wild East, you may say, to reference the lawless conditions of the Wild West an aeon and a half back.
Kyrgyzstan’s gambling halls are almost certainly worth going to, therefore, as a piece of anthropological analysis, to see cash being bet as a form of social one-upmanship, the conspicuous consumption that Thorstein Veblen wrote about in 19th century u.s..