The conclusive number of Kyrgyzstan casinos is a fact in some dispute. As information from this nation, out in the very remote central part of Central Asia, can be awkward to receive, this might not be too surprising. Regardless if there are two or 3 approved gambling halls is the element at issue, perhaps not quite the most consequential slice of data that we don’t have.
What no doubt will be true, as it is of most of the ex-Soviet states, and absolutely accurate of those in Asia, is that there will be a lot more illegal and clandestine gambling dens. The switch to legalized gambling did not drive all the former gambling halls to come from the dark and become legitimate. So, the clash over the total amount of Kyrgyzstan’s gambling dens is a small one at most: how many legal gambling dens is the thing we are seeking to answer here.
We know that in Bishkek, the capital metropolis, there is the Casino Las Vegas (a remarkably original name, don’t you think?), which has both table games and slot machines. We will also find both the Casino Bishkek and the Xanadu Casino. Both of these have 26 slot machines and 11 table games, split amidst roulette, twenty-one, and poker. Given the remarkable similarity in the size and setup of these 2 Kyrgyzstan casinos, it may be even more surprising to find that they are at the same location. This appears most astonishing, so we can no doubt conclude that the number of Kyrgyzstan’s gambling dens, at least the authorized ones, stops at 2 casinos, one of them having altered their title a short time ago.
The nation, in common with many of the ex-USSR, has experienced something of a fast conversion to free-enterprise economy. The Wild East, you might say, to refer to the chaotic conditions of the Wild West a century and a half ago.
Kyrgyzstan’s casinos are actually worth visiting, therefore, as a piece of social analysis, to see cash being bet as a type of social one-upmanship, the conspicuous consumption that Thorstein Veblen spoke about in nineteeth century usa.