Washington ( CNN ) -- Pick up a television remote control in your Las Vegas , Nevada , hotel room today and you are guaranteed to find a program to teach you how to play craps , blackjack and roulette as well as be inundated with 30-second messages about who to vote for in the Nov. 2 election . Wait , who to vote for ? That 's correct . The television airwaves in Las Vegas are so saturated with political TV commercials that in the past week alone , these ads took up 180,600 seconds or 3,010 minutes , according to a new analysis of TV ads for CNN by Campaign Media Analysis Group . To boil it down into a more recognizable number , more than 50 hours was dedicated to TV commercials on Las Vegas stations in the last seven days , said Evan Tracey , CMAG 's president and CNN 's consultant on TV advertising . An astonishing figure , yes , but when you pause it suddenly makes sense . After all , the battle for control of Congress is being waged in this Western state where Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is fighting for his political life and Republicans have a very good shot of defeating a Democratic incumbent in its march to try and retake the House majority . Add in the race for governor and other state offices and the airwaves quickly become cluttered with political TV commercials . And Tracey noted that seven in 10 commercials currently running on Las Vegas airwaves are negative . What is happening in Las Vegas is playing out in cities across the country such as Portland , Oregon ; Orlando and Tampa , Florida ; Denver , Colorado ; Cleveland , Ohio ; and Sacramento and Los Angeles , California . These are all media markets where more than 5,000 political ads ran on TV stations in the past week . `` This is crunch time for politicians as they start to try and reach the all important independent and late deciding voters who will determine the outcomes of close races , '' Tracey said . `` Even though most voters are locked in for one candidate there are still a significant percentage of people just tuning in and deciding who to vote for . '' But does this saturation help ? Wo n't voters turn off and tune out ? Maybe so , but you still have to have skin in the game . `` Even though there is tremendous waste in this on return for investment , it is right now influencing the undecided voters who will decide these close elections , '' Tracey contended . `` Politics is still the only business that spends the most amount of money and has the least amount of people to influence . '' A snapshot of all television advertising in the past week shows that $ 40 million was spent on Senate races , while more than $ 46.6 million was dedicated to House races . In the Senate , Republicans spent about $ 4 million more than Democrats , thanks to ads run by outside interest groups . Meanwhile , the GOP spent more than $ 2 million more than Democrats in the battle for the House , also due to spending by outside groups . Now , to really give you an even bigger mind-boggling figure : $ 182 million was spent on television ads for federal , local and state races combined in the past week . This was a 17 percent increase from the prior week . And if that does n't surprise you , check this out : Tracey predicts that by year 's end -- the final spending figure for all political and issue TV advertising in the 2010 midterm elections will exceed $ 3 billion . Just in time for the start of the 2012 presidential race . Remember , the first commercial of the 2008 presidential contest was aired in December 2006 by then-Rep. Duncan Hunter , R-California .
Fifty hours dedicated to political TV commercials on Sacramento stations in 2010 . Nationwide $ 3 billion in ads spent on Senate races , $ 3 billion spent on Senate races . Analyst predicts all political and issue TV advertising in 2010 will exceed $ 3 billion .