Not sure if anyone remembers.. but chesscube introduced "cubits" and that was the beginning of the end.
Good luck with that.
If I was a gambling man, I would certainly bet you that chess won't be played in casinos. But as others have suggested, you could certainly find people to wager with on certain chess games.
I don't entirely agree with what you said about math predicting winners in sports such as football. Math is never wrong, but it has no judgement whatsoever. You have to know what's important, what could predict a winner. I would say this varies so much from team to team and game to game that it soon becomes a matter of judgement.