Archive for February, 2007

Kyrgyzstan gambling dens

The actual number of Kyrgyzstan gambling halls is a fact in a little doubt. As data from this country, out in the very most interior section of Central Asia, often is awkward to achieve, this may not be all that difficult to believe. Whether there are 2 or 3 accredited gambling halls is the item at issue, maybe not really the most all-important article of information that we don’t have.

What no doubt will be credible, as it is of the majority of the ex-USSR states, and definitely accurate of those in Asia, is that there will be a great many more not approved and underground casinos. The change to legalized gaming did not drive all the aforestated gambling halls to come away from the dark into the light. So, the contention regarding the total number of Kyrgyzstan’s casinos is a minor one at best: how many accredited ones is the item we are trying to answer here.

We know that located in Bishkek, the capital metropolis, there is the Casino Las Vegas (a remarkably original title, don’t you think?), which has both gaming tables and slot machines. We can also see both the Casino Bishkek and the Xanadu Casino. Each of these have 26 video slots and 11 table games, divided amongst roulette, chemin de fer, and poker. Given the remarkable similarity in the size and floor plan of these two Kyrgyzstan gambling dens, it may be even more bizarre to see that both are at the same address. This appears most difficult to believe, so we can no doubt state that the number of Kyrgyzstan’s casinos, at least the approved ones, ends at two casinos, one of them having changed their title not long ago.

The country, in common with practically all of the ex-Soviet Union, has undergone something of a rapid adjustment to capitalistic system. The Wild East, you could say, to refer to the chaotic circumstances of the Wild West a century and a half ago.

Kyrgyzstan’s casinos are honestly worth going to, therefore, as a bit of anthropological analysis, to see dollars being played as a form of collective one-upmanship, the conspicuous consumption that Thorstein Veblen wrote about in 19th century America.

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