THE difference was a nose but for bookmakers around the country it was measured in millions of dollars as takes were generally down on the Melbourne Cup.

TAB figures fell by more than 10 per cent across the board as Australians either tightened their belts or were turned off by the international raiders. The overall for Tabcorp holds for the afternoon was $144.6 million with $93.6 million of that on the Cup.

The Victorian TAB numbers were down more than $4 million while in NSW they dropped 14.6 per cent in the win and place pools. TattsBet, which runs the tote in Queensland and South Australia, reported win and place turnover fell by more than $2.8million or 12.1 per cent.

While that was disappointing, the finish crushed bookmakers with the well-fancied Dunaden, an $8.50 chance, beating $31 outsider Red Cadeaux by a nose.

''We held $8.5 million on the race and the run-around on the photo was $2.5 million,'' TAB Sportsbet's Glenn Munsie said.

''You won't be finding many people on the rails that liked the result. Dunaden has been in the market for a long time and the punters have chipped away at him as they have at three of the top four.''

Sportingbet boss Michael Sullivan, who enjoyed Cup day success with Facile Tigre later in the day, called it horrible.

''We would have copped the dead heat but $1.3 million goes out the door because of that thing putting out its nose down on the line,'' he said.

Betstar's Alan Eskander would have also been happy. ''When it was going on and on, I thought this might be OK,'' he said. ''The dead heat would have been been better than Dunaden, and Red Cadeaux was a couple of hundred thousand in the bag for us.''