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The actual number of Kyrgyzstan gambling dens is something in some dispute. As info from this country, out in the very remote central section of Central Asia, tends to be awkward to receive, this may not be too surprising. Whether there are 2 or 3 approved gambling halls is the element at issue, maybe not really the most earth-shaking piece of information that we do not have.
What certainly is credible, as it is of most of the old USSR nations, and certainly correct of those in Asia, is that there certainly is a great many more not approved and backdoor casinos. The adjustment to approved gaming didn’t encourage all the aforestated gambling dens to come from the dark and become legitimate. So, the controversy over the total number of Kyrgyzstan’s casinos is a small one at most: how many authorized ones is the thing we are trying to answer here.
We are aware that in Bishkek, the capital city, there is the Casino Las Vegas (a remarkably original title, don’t you think?), which has both gaming tables and slots. We will additionally see both the Casino Bishkek and the Xanadu Casino. Each of these offer 26 one armed bandits and 11 table games, split between roulette, blackjack, and poker. Given the remarkable similarity in the square footage and floor plan of these 2 Kyrgyzstan casinos, it may be even more surprising to see that they are at the same location. This appears most astonishing, so we can clearly state that the list of Kyrgyzstan’s gambling halls, at least the authorized ones, stops at 2 members, 1 of them having changed their title recently.
The state, in common with many of the ex-USSR, has undergone something of a rapid change to free-enterprise economy. The Wild East, you may say, to reference the lawless ways of the Wild West a century and a half ago.
Kyrgyzstan’s gambling halls are in reality worth checking out, therefore, as a piece of anthropological research, to see money being played as a type of collective one-upmanship, the celebrated consumption that Thorstein Veblen wrote about in 19th century usa.
