[ English ]

The actual number of Kyrgyzstan casinos is a fact in a little doubt. As information from this country, out in the very remote central area of Central Asia, can be hard to acquire, this might not be too bizarre. Whether there are two or 3 legal gambling dens is the thing at issue, maybe not quite the most consequential bit of info that we don’t have.

What will be accurate, as it is of the lion’s share of the old USSR states, and absolutely true of those in Asia, is that there certainly is many more illegal and alternative casinos. The adjustment to acceptable gaming did not drive all the underground locations to come from the dark and become legitimate. So, the controversy over the total amount of Kyrgyzstan’s gambling halls is a small one at most: how many authorized casinos is the element we’re attempting to resolve here.

We are aware that in Bishkek, the capital municipality, there is the Casino Las Vegas (a remarkably original title, don’t you think?), which has both gaming tables and one armed bandits. We will additionally find both the Casino Bishkek and the Xanadu Casino. The pair of these offer 26 slot machines and 11 gaming tables, split amongst roulette, blackjack, and poker. Given the amazing likeness in the sq.ft. and setup of these two Kyrgyzstan gambling halls, it might be even more bizarre to determine that both are at the same address. This seems most astonishing, so we can no doubt state that the list of Kyrgyzstan’s gambling dens, at least the legal ones, is limited to 2 members, one of them having adjusted their name a short time ago.

The state, in common with almost all of the ex-Soviet Union, has undergone something of a rapid change to free-enterprise economy. The Wild East, you may say, to refer to the anarchical conditions of the Wild West a century and a half ago.

Kyrgyzstan’s gambling dens are almost certainly worth going to, therefore, as a bit of anthropological analysis, to see money being bet as a form of civil one-upmanship, the conspicuous consumption that Thorstein Veblen wrote about in nineteeth century u.s..