CASINO HUNGARY

One does not have to write much more than the title itself. I could have written ‘Las Magyaros’ – as for Las Vegas – the point is the same: the democracy of Viktor Orbán as well as everyday reality in Hungary today are the realizations of a modern casino that has been carefully built in all its details.

The bank is provided by the government and its two-third majority in the Parliament. Symbolically, too, since the bank may pretend to be stupid or dumb at any time, but also practically, since it rules everything. The opposition is forced to gamble.

At the casino, the owner writes the rules and can change them any time, even while playing. The owner employs everyone, of course only those who are completely loyal to him. Some are then lifted or dropped, but only the owner can give a stable existence to anyone.

Other gamblers not employed i. e. the opposition and the rest don’t have to place their bets, they may hang around outside as well. But the juice is inside.

The government/owner is inviting some  fency “slot machine manufacturers” from “abroad” to allow them to get out some of there revenues, and they are very pleased with that. Who has heard of pay-fights in a casino? Whatever the rules are in a casino is really not a matter for those “foreigners”.

Security guards, but even casino cleaners, laugh and even make fun of opposition players who are formulating their future and invent different gaming systems. They look down on them. Rightly so. They are well aware, that if some new winning tactics seem successful, the owner changes the rules immediately so that the casino would not lose.

Opposition players can be thrown out of Casino Hungary at any time by hand if they want to "disrupt" normal operations. After all, many people out there still have an interest in the casino. There are suppliers of bars with pálinka, wines, other drinks and women in stock, and the entire catering and wellness industry.

Las Magyaros in its entirety.

Afterword. I deliberately did not write the Hungarian – Magyarized – spelling “kaszinó” because this word and institution was introduced by Count István Széchenyi in the early 19^th Century Hungarian Reform Age as a modern as well as customary community space fitting into Hungarian traditions of playing cards, smoking the pipe and not least talking to other fellow Hungarians, to discuss issues, so as Széchenyi put it, for the "frictions of the mind." Coffee houses sprouted from the world of these meeting places, and even more: a revolution.
Well, Casino Hungary is here to prevent this.