I'd read on.
In Griff’s opinion the art to being a successful gambler (if ever there was such a thing) was knowing when to quit while you were ahead, or more often than not, quit while you were only down by a little.
This was advice he regularly doled out to others but rarely heeded himself.
Consequently he stumbled out the Lucky Horse Shoe Casino a little after 4am and stood forlorn and penniless on the tarmac amidst all the other booze-addled punters still braving the Basildon Festival Leisure Park. He tried to remember the last time he’d left the casino with more money than he entered. It seemed he’d couldn’t recall the last time he’d left with anything more than a headache.
The opening structure is a little odd, but not terribly so. I would keep reading. You missed a chance to let us see if we could figure out the "hook" just from the title, genre, and first thirteen. But I think that it's there.
To your point about the title, the writing here doesn't really seem compelling enough to lay out an idea as strong as _could_ be implied in the title. Instead of being given the "key to the multiverse", which sounds pretty dramatic, he could simply get an early quantum computer that enables him to calculate odds instantly and integrating more factors than usual.
So I still think something more extraordinary would be helpful here. It doesn't have to be a complete understanding of the extraordinary thing, or even the extraordinary thing itself, but at least the promise of something extraordinary would make me get more interested.
Even still, I think you could probably tighten up on the lines you have. See the examples below although some of them are NITS versus major issues.
I'm not sure the "this was advice . . . " line is necessary because the next paragraph shows that he doesn't heed that advice.
"Consquently" - IMHO doesn't add anything to the line.
The "and stood forlorn . . . Park," doesn't add much for me. The next line "He tried to remember . . " tells me the same information except that other people are still gambling, which I'd assume anyway.
The "It seemed he'd couldn't recall the last time. . " might be better as "He couldn't recall when . . ."
I'd read on.
quote:
In Griff’s opinion the art to being a successful gambler
quote:
You haven't posted the first thirteen. By my count you only have 6 lines.
What Zoot posted fits into the reply box exactly.
Please don't confuse people more than they already are about what counts as 13 lines?
**
Actually...I kinda like it. I'd probably prefer to start with the last paragraph as it sets things up quite nicely itself, but the initial paragraphs do set it up nicely (but I think they would also work AFTER the final paragraph). That's more of a stylistic choice, though...
With a change you could drop words like "consequently" and just state that "Graff stumbled out of the..." yadda yadda yadda. I think you can bring the rest of the background information in through that setup just as well as you did in your current post.
But I would certainly keep reading.
In that context, the exit from the Lucky Horse Shoe established "down by a little" as "forlorn and penniless". Which primes me to expect an opportunity to lose big.
Clearly, not everyone is going to read those lines that way. And I could be reading them wrong.
The Gambler's Prayer: Dear God, please let me break even. I really need the money.
That reminds me of your man.
what really messed with me was using a real casino's name and then telling me it was at this Basildon Festival Leisure Park, I already had Binion's Horse Shoe Casino in my mind's eye it was hard to put it somewhere else.