How big is the online casino advertising business going to be? “Astoundingly f***ing big,” writes Gawker’s Hamilton Nolan.

Ad Age Digital posted a story about how in the next five years, somewhere between $3.5 billion and $4 billion will be spent on marketing for the internet gaming sector. Let’s get the boys in from Mad Men to Lucky Strike the hell out of this business, because it’s going to get pretty dramatic.

Ad Age writes that according to Simon Holliday, director at H2 Gambling Capital believes the value of the online-gambling market to exceed $13 billion in the next decade, but not without the help of a major marketing boom.

“Driving players to their sites is the biggest single cost of these companies,” he said. “It is probable that 25% to 30% of company net revenues [20% less than the gross including bonuses] will be spent on advertising and marketing budgets in the initial years, as there is a land grab.”

The vast potential of this market can only be achieved by overcoming obstacles, the first of course being the state-by-state regulation of online poker and the general illegality of online gambling in the U.S.

And here’s something I hadn’t considered before: Google’s policy in the U.S. is an obstacle to overcome. Google “doesn’t allow advertising for internet-based games where money or other items of value are paid or wagered in order to win a greater sum of money or other item of value.” But you know, Google has been known to adapt with the times. Perhaps that kind of thing will be changed, if only on a state-by-state basis.

I like how Gawker’s Nolan concluded his story:

“This would be a great way to rescue the U.S. economy, if only every dollar earned were not coming out of the pocket of another poorer and more desperate U.S. citizen.”