The Hong Kong Jockey Club (HKJC) reported record race betting handle in its most recent fiscal year thanks to international wagering nearly doubling.

This past Sunday (16) marked the end of the HKJC’s 88-day racing season, during which total wagering topped HKD 117.4b (US $15b), a 10.7% improvement over the 2015-16 season total and a new record high for Hong Kong’s betting monopoly. It’s also a reversal from 2015-16, which saw local racing turnover dip 2%, the first such decline in eight seasons.

The 2016-17 year did benefit from five additional mid-week race meetings, although HKJC CEO Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges was quick to point out that this amounted to only 22 additional races. In a true apples-to-apples comparison with last year’s 83 meetings, turnover was still up 6.9% year-on-year.

Engelbrecht-Bresges credited the HKJC’s expansion of international commingling as the real driver of the past year’s turnover growth. Total commingling turnover in 2015-16 was HKD 3.47b ($440m) or 3.3% of total handle, while the 2016-17 season saw commingling turnover leap 87% year-on-year to HKD 6.5b or 5.7% of the total. Engelbrecht-Bresges said the increased international interest in the HKJC gave him “significant optimism” for the monopoly’s prospects in the 2017-18 fiscal year.