Overseas horses plundered the bulk of the Melbourne Cup's $6.2 million prize money and they may also be responsible for a decline in betting on the race.

While Tabcorp took wagers totalling $132 million across Tuesday's 10-race Flemington program, turnover on the Cup itself was down 3.7 per cent on 2013 figures.

NSW and Victorian punters offloaded a combined $86.9 million compared to just over $90 million last year.

With 10 of the 22 Cup runners trained internationally, the difficulty in assessing the form of the raiders may have contributed to the decline in revenue.

More than $31 million was bet on the Victorian totalisator while NSW punters plonked $46 million.

Fixed odds betting attracted another $9.3 million.

Patriotism counted for little and it was just as well with international horses filling the first two placings.

Locals rallied behind German raider Protectionist who showed a stunning turn of foot at the end of 3200m to beat perennial bridesmaid Red Cadeaux.

The winner started at $8.50 with TAB fixed odds and was among the most popular horses.

David Attenborough, Tabcorp managing director and CEO, was satisfied with the day.

"At peak, our systems were processing a record 3019 transactions per second," Attenborough said.

Tattsbet, which caters to punters in Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania and the Northern Territory, sold around $39 million worth of Melbourne Cup bets, a drop of around $3 million on last year.

Just over $26 million of that was wagered by Queenslanders with South Australia accounting for $7.7 million.

Tattsbet also reported a 20 per cent boost in online bets while fixed odds sales increased seven per cent.

One punter with online bookmaking firm Sportingbet collected $221,000 after a $26,000 bet on Protectionist at $8.50.

Others weren't so lucky.

One lost $30,000 on Signoff, who finished fourth, while another had $25,000 on Admire Rakti, who ran last and later collapsed and died.