At the bottom of the Rhode Island’s Newport Bridge sits an empty casino. It’s massive, a block of a building with a huge lot that you can see driving over the bridge itself.
Although the casino is now closed, it was very much open when I was a kid. It sat on the opposite side of the boats and mansions in downtown, near the adult superstores and waste treatment facilities we would drive past to get to my grandmother’s house. When we got to the stop light at the bottom of the bridge’s exit, there were always cars in that lot. Driving to Nana’s on holidays, I could hear from the back seat my dad curse on Easter or Thanksgiving or Christmas, A goddamn disgrace, referencing the people spending their holiday time gambling instead of holding their nose by the waste water plant and hoping it didn’t ruin your appetite for pie.
This is to say, my father is a deeply Catholic man who despises gambling. And yet, today, he’s buying a Powerball ticket.
I have an aversion to casinos, much as I do grocery stores, in that there are no clocks or windows. But of course it comes more from growing up Catholic and these memories of my dad shaking his head in disbelief at people sitting in front of slot machines instead of turkey dinners.
I vaguely remember a parish discussion about not voting for a casino in Rhode Island. And yet, we’d leave mass and go get a Powerball ticket from Cumberland Farms on the way home.
All of this came back to me with the news of the $1.9 billion dollar prize this week. I texted my dad to see if he bought a Powerball ticket for the big drawing tonight. (He did.) I may have also bought a ticket (or 20).
I think this is hilarious in that that my dad and I are so clear-eyed about being against gambling – it’s addictive! It’s predatory! – and yet, when it comes to spending a dollar to maybe win billions, we’re like well, OK sure. I read a piece recently that talked about how Catholic churches first used gambling via bingo nights and guess-the-number-of-jelly-beans and 50/50 raffles for fundraising during the 1960s and 70s, which makes me wonder if this is where my dad developed that type of relationship with the hobby. Like, oh it’s bad, but this version of it is OK. It feels like a very American version of Catholicism, where there’s a few flexible rules just in order to live your life in the USA. It’s a minimal spend for a dream, and it’s not like you’re entering a casino. You do it in the same space you buy coffee and candy bars, so it doesn’t feel as dangerous or sinful. So I’m sure our Pope would turn a blind eye to it (another very Catholic thing to do.)
When we were talking about this week’s big prize, my dad told me that he read in the Washington Post that you’re more likely to be attacked by a bear than win Powerball, to which I said well then I’ll avoid the woods as I go pick up my tickets. I know it’s not likely that I’ll win, and yet I whistled a little tune walking out of that bodega with my fistful of square yellow papers. I mean, what if one of them was the winner? It’s fun to pretend.
It also feels like for a moment I’m a bit closer to my dad, on the east coast, a deeply American and capitalist tradition connecting us across the coasts. That closeness makes it a little easier knowing I’ll stay in California for Thanksgiving. At least I won’t be in a casino.