The complete number of Kyrgyzstan gambling halls is something in a little doubt. As data from this state, out in the very remote central section of Central Asia, often is awkward to get, this may not be too bizarre. Whether there are 2 or three approved casinos is the element at issue, perhaps not really the most all-important bit of information that we do not have.

What will be correct, as it is of many of the old Soviet states, and absolutely correct of those in Asia, is that there certainly is a good many more not approved and alternative gambling halls. The change to legalized gambling didn’t encourage all the underground locations to come out of the dark and become legitimate. So, the contention regarding the number of Kyrgyzstan’s gambling dens is a tiny one at best: how many authorized ones is the thing we are trying to resolve here.

We know that located 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 video slots. We can also find both the Casino Bishkek and the Xanadu Casino. Both of these offer 26 video slots and 11 gaming tables, divided between roulette, 21, and poker. Given the remarkable similarity in the square footage and floor plan of these 2 Kyrgyzstan gambling halls, it may be even more astonishing to see that the casinos are at the same location. This seems most astonishing, so we can clearly conclude that the number of Kyrgyzstan’s gambling dens, at least the accredited ones, ends at two casinos, 1 of them having changed their title just a while ago.

The country, in common with most of the ex-USSR, has experienced something of a fast conversion to free market. The Wild East, you could say, to refer to the lawless ways of the Wild West an aeon and a half ago.

Kyrgyzstan’s casinos are in reality worth going to, therefore, as a piece of social analysis, to see dollars being wagered as a form of social one-upmanship, the apparent consumption that Thorstein Veblen spoke about in nineteeth century u.s.a..