The complete number of Kyrgyzstan gambling halls is something in a little doubt. As data from this state, out in the very remote interior section of Central Asia, tends to be awkward to acquire, this may not be too bizarre. Whether there are 2 or 3 accredited casinos is the item at issue, perhaps not really the most earth-shaking piece of info that we don’t have.
What certainly is true, as it is of many of the ex-Soviet states, and absolutely correct of those located in Asia, is that there certainly is a good many more not legal and alternative casinos. The adjustment to acceptable gambling didn’t energize all the underground locations to come from the dark into the light. So, the controversy over the total number of Kyrgyzstan’s casinos is a minor one at best: how many legal ones is the element we’re attempting to resolve here.
We are aware that located in Bishkek, the capital metropolis, there is the Casino Las Vegas (a marvelously unique name, don’t you think?), which has both table games and slot machine games. We will also find both the Casino Bishkek and the Xanadu Casino. Each of these offer 26 one armed bandits and 11 table games, separated amidst roulette, blackjack, and poker. Given the remarkable similarity in the square footage and setup of these 2 Kyrgyzstan gambling halls, it might be even more astonishing to see that the casinos are at the same location. This seems most difficult to believe, so we can no doubt state that the number of Kyrgyzstan’s casinos, at least the legal ones, is limited to 2 members, 1 of them having altered their name just a while ago.
The state, in common with most of the ex-Soviet Union, has experienced something of a rapid conversion to commercialism. The Wild East, you might say, to allude to the chaotic ways of the Wild West a century and a half ago.
Kyrgyzstan’s gambling dens are actually worth going to, therefore, as a piece of social analysis, to see chips being played as a type of civil one-upmanship, the aristocratic consumption that Thorstein Veblen spoke about in 19th century America.