Punters wagered as much as A$200M ($153M) on the Melbourne Cup on Tuesday, with Almandin’s win "bringing mixed fortunes for bookmakers but big returns for those who backed it early," according to Rick Wallace of THE AUSTRALIAN. Sportsbet reported a "modest win" on the race and William Hill said that it finished in front, but the seven-year-old gelding’s victory was "a tough result for CrownBet." TAB punters in Victoria and NSW outlaid almost A$95M ($72.7M) on the race that stops the nation, "a result the company said was in line with last year’s total." Tabcorp GM of Corporate Affairs Nicholas Tzaferis said that the TAB took more than 10 million individual bets on Tuesday. Sportsbet said that it paid out A$13.6M ($10.4M) on the Cup winner "but managed to finish a nose in front." The online bookmaker is understood to have held about A$25M ($19.1M) on the race, up from A$20M last year, and was handling almost 20,000 bets a minute in the lead-up to the race (THE AUSTRALIAN, 11/2). In Sydney, Adam Pengilly reported bookmakers "were left ruing Lloyd Williams' record fifth Melbourne Cup winner" with most reporting Almandin, the one-time broken down stayer, "ripped millions out of their bags" before swiftly installing him as favorite for next year's race. Sportsbet reported one punter turned turned a A$10 ($7.65) first-four bet into a A$241,000 ($184,4000) windfall and it offered odds as much as A$301 ($230) about Almandin winning the Melbourne Cup months ago, "a price snapped up by just two punters." Sportsbet's Christian Jantzen said, "Punters outsmarted us by backing Almandin at the ridiculously big odds of A$301 earlier in the piece and even [on Monday] they kept getting stuck into him" (SYDNEY MORNING HERALD, 11/1).
