Women are more likely to get "legless" at the Melbourne Cup than at any other sporting event.

The famous race day has topped the list of Victoria's worst sporting events for alcohol intoxication and assaults, a VicHealth and Eastern Health Turning Point report says.

The research comes as no surprise to authorities, who say Australia's problem drinking culture is putting pressure on ambulance services.

The research was the first to make a direct link between sports and alcohol harm, one of the report's authors Dr Belinda Lloyd says.

The spike in alcohol-related emergency presentations and ambulance callouts the day before the Melbourne Cup was partly due to people binge-drinking because they could recover on the public holiday, Dr Lloyd said.

"It's strongly promoted as an alcohol-related event," she said.

"We add to that Australia's culture of drinking and drunkenness."

Ambulance Victoria operations manager Paul Holman said ambulance services had to deal with alcohol-related assaults, hospitalisation and illnesses, seeing on average up to 130 patients over the Melbourne spring racing carnival.

"Those ambulances are not available to the rest of the community," he said.

"There is an attitude problem. It's some sort of kudos to go out and get as legless as possible."

The report says the Melbourne Cup ranks as the number one sporting event for women for assaults and acute intoxication.

Men are most likely get involved in an assault at the Melbourne Cup but most likely to get drunk at the AFL grand final, it says.

Police ejected more than 150 people from Flemington racetrack on Melbourne Cup day last year.

But the Victoria Racing Club says crowd behaviour has been improving.

VicHealth chief spokesman Bruce Bolam said the results reinforced the need to ban alcohol advertising during daytime sporting events and to tax cheap wine.

"The more advertising young people are exposed to, the greater likelihood they will drink and the greater likelihood they will drink in large volumes," he told reporters on Thursday.

The health report records ambulance attendances, hospital emergency presentations, admissions and police data on assaults and traffic incidents in Melbourne from 2000 to 2009.

The researchers looked at the Melbourne Cup, Formula 1 Grand Prix, cricket, AFL, Australian soccer, the Commonwealth Games and the World Cup soccer final involving Australia.