The confirmed number of Kyrgyzstan gambling dens is something in a little doubt. As information from this country, out in the very remote interior area of Central Asia, can be hard to achieve, this might not be too bizarre. Regardless if there are two or three approved gambling halls is the element at issue, maybe not really the most consequential slice of data that we don’t have.

What will be true, as it is of the majority of the ex-Russian nations, and absolutely truthful of those in Asia, is that there will be a good many more not legal and bootleg market gambling halls. The change to authorized wagering did not energize all the underground places to come away from the dark and become legitimate. So, the bickering regarding the total amount of Kyrgyzstan’s casinos is a tiny one at best: how many approved ones is the element we are attempting to reconcile here.

We know that in Bishkek, the capital metropolis, there is the Casino Las Vegas (an amazingly unique name, don’t you think?), which has both table games and slots. We will also find both the Casino Bishkek and the Xanadu Casino. Both of these offer 26 slot machines and 11 gaming tables, split amidst roulette, vingt-et-un, and poker. Given the remarkable likeness in the square footage and setup of these two Kyrgyzstan gambling halls, it may be even more surprising to see that they are at the same address. This appears most difficult to believe, so we can perhaps conclude that the list of Kyrgyzstan’s gambling dens, at least the legal ones, stops at 2 casinos, 1 of them having changed their title just a while ago.

The country, in common with many of the ex-Soviet Union, has undergone something of a accelerated adjustment to commercialism. The Wild East, you might say, to refer to the chaotic circumstances of the Wild West an aeon and a half back.

Kyrgyzstan’s gambling dens are almost certainly worth visiting, therefore, as a piece of anthropological analysis, to see cash being bet as a form of collective one-upmanship, the celebrated consumption that Thorstein Veblen spoke about in nineteeth century America.