Archive for September, 2008

Kyrgyzstan gambling dens

September 20th, 2008
[ English ]

The conclusive number of Kyrgyzstan casinos is a fact in some dispute. As info from this state, out in the very remote central section of Central Asia, tends to be awkward to acquire, this may not be all that astonishing. Whether there are two or three approved gambling halls is the thing at issue, maybe not quite the most earth-shattering bit of data that we don’t have.

What certainly is true, as it is of the lion’s share of the old Russian states, and definitely accurate of those located in Asia, is that there certainly is a lot more not approved and clandestine gambling dens. The change to acceptable gambling didn’t drive all the illegal places to come away from the dark and become legitimate. So, the battle regarding the total amount of Kyrgyzstan’s gambling dens is a tiny one at best: how many legal gambling dens is the thing we’re attempting to answer here.

We understand that in Bishkek, the capital municipality, there is the Casino Las Vegas (a remarkably unique 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. Both of these offer 26 slot machines and 11 table games, split amidst roulette, vingt-et-un, and poker. Given the remarkable similarity in the square footage and setup of these two Kyrgyzstan gambling dens, it may be even more astonishing to find that the casinos share an address. This seems most confounding, so we can no doubt conclude that the number of Kyrgyzstan’s casinos, at least the accredited ones, ends at 2 members, 1 of them having adjusted their name a short time ago.

The country, in common with practically all of the ex-Soviet Union, has experienced something of a rapid conversion to capitalistic system. The Wild East, you might say, to allude to the lawless conditions of the Wild West an aeon and a half back.

Kyrgyzstan’s gambling halls are in fact worth visiting, therefore, as a bit of anthropological research, to see dollars being bet as a type of social one-upmanship, the apparent consumption that Thorstein Veblen spoke about in 19th century u.s..