Gambling in Afghanistan
Gambling is one among the fastest growing activities today which can be played online as well as offline. During the past people used to gamble going to a place or a casino which is especially for this purpose. Today with internet technology, it has changed the way of how people gamble. The internet is now flooded with online gambling casinos through. The advantage of online gambling is that you can play anywhere and you don’t need to travel anywhere.
Today gambling is found in many countries and there are only a handful countries that do not allow gambling but at any point in the history of that country gambling was allowed. Afghanistan is on among such countries where gambling is considered illegal. The Taliban government outlawed most forms of entertainment as soon as they came into power and since then gambling is forbidden by Islam. Since the war things have changed slightly, where many soldiers play at online casinos to keep themselves occupied.
Afghanistan is one such Islam country which is bordered by countries like Pakistan, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and China. Being the 41st largest country in the world, the country has 34 provinces, the only city with more than a million residents is the capital Kabul. Other major cities include Herat, Mazar-e, Sharif, Ghazni, Kunduz, Jalalabad and Kandahar. The official languages of the country are Persian and Pashto. Other spoken languages include Hazaragi, Uzbek, Turkmen, Balochi, Nuristani, Pashai, Brahui, Pamiri and Hindko.
Kite Fighting is a one of the famous gambling activities in Afghanistan. The kite fighting is played among teams and a team consists of two people where one person holds the string and he is the person who takes care and controls the dips and swerves of the kite and the other person takes care of the spool so that the kite can quickly be pulled in or slackened. The objective of the game is to cut the string of the opponents kite before he could cut your kite string and this is played for money which amounts around 600,000 Afghanis approximately $5 for each game. The game is mostly conducted on the dirt fields with the actual duels occurring as high as 400 feet in the air. Matches can last anywhere from a few minutes to over an hour. When a string is finally cut, children scramble to tear it apart and collect a souvenir.
Animal Fighting, another famous activity in Afghanistan, where dog and cock fighting takes place, but the most popular event of this type is quail fighting. This is one among the traditional Afghan pastimes, especially in the capital of Kabul where two birds are placed inside a circle and let to fight each other. The person who owns the bird which wins the fight is paid the betting amount. The fight mostly ends when any one of the bird runs out of the circle and the bird which stays is declared the winner.
