The actual number of Kyrgyzstan casinos is something in some dispute. As details from this nation, out in the very remote interior section of Central Asia, tends to be difficult to achieve, this might not be all that difficult to believe. Whether there are 2 or three authorized gambling dens is the element at issue, perhaps not quite the most all-important article of data that we don’t have.
What no doubt will be true, as it is of most of the old Russian states, and certainly true of those located in Asia, is that there will be many more illegal and bootleg market gambling dens. The switch to approved betting did not encourage all the aforestated casinos to come out of the dark into the light. So, the contention over the total number of Kyrgyzstan’s casinos is a minor one at best: how many approved ones is the thing we’re trying to answer here.
We understand that in Bishkek, the capital municipality, there is the Casino Las Vegas (a stunningly unique name, don’t you think?), which has both gaming tables and slot machine games. We will also find both the Casino Bishkek and the Xanadu Casino. Both of these have 26 one armed bandits and 11 gaming tables, split amidst roulette, twenty-one, and poker. Given the amazing likeness in the size and floor plan of these two Kyrgyzstan casinos, it might be even more surprising to see that the casinos are at the same address. This seems most difficult to believe, so we can clearly state that the list of Kyrgyzstan’s gambling dens, at least the accredited ones, stops at two casinos, one of them having altered their title recently.
The state, in common with many of the ex-USSR, has undergone something of a fast adjustment to capitalistic system. The Wild East, you could say, to refer to the chaotic circumstances of the Wild West an aeon and a half back.
Kyrgyzstan’s casinos are in fact worth visiting, therefore, as a bit of anthropological research, to see cash being bet as a form of social one-upmanship, the apparent consumption that Thorstein Veblen spoke about in 19th century usa.