China’s lottery sales increased by more than 8% in 2017, thanks to double-digit gains by sports lottery products.

Official figures released by the Ministry of Finance on Wednesday show overall lottery sales hitting RMB 427b (US$67b) last year, a year-on-year gain of 8.1% over 2016’s RMB 394.6b. This marks the second straight year of annual gains following the 3.8% decline experienced in 2015.

While welfare lottery sales continued to account for the majority of overall revenue, welfare lottery sales improved only 5.1% to RMB 217b, while sports lottery sales shot up 11.4% to RMB 210b. The sports lottery improvement is all the more remarkable given that 2017 didn’t feature a major international football tournament like the UEFA Euro 2016.

The overall gains also came despite the ongoing suspension of online lottery sales imposed by Beijing in March 2015 after evidence emerged of serious corruption at provincial lottery administration centers.