Chinese sports lottery operator MelcoLot Limited has released its financial results for the first half of 2016 showing a 41% increase year-on-year in total revenues to $4.38 million while its net loss narrowed by over 38% to $1.54 million.

According to a report from the Macau Business Daily newspaper, the Hong Kong-based firm reported a net loss of $2.49 million for the initial six months of 2015 and has been helped by a surge in sales of lottery terminals and parts.

The Hong Kong-listed operator is a subsidiary of Melco International Development Limited, which is led by local gaming magnate Lawrence Ho Yau Lung, and revealed that sales of lottery terminals and parts soared by some 76% year-on-year to $4.33 million and compared with $2.46 million for the same period of last year.

The firm explained that the improvement in its net loss was due to reduced employee benefits along with a fall in other expenses and an improvement in interest income.

However, MelcoLot Limited declared in a filing with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange that its first-half revenues from the provision of services and solutions for the distribution of lottery products had plunged by 92% year-on-year to just over $51,500, which represented a drop of over $593,000 from the corresponding period in 2015.

Official data from China’s Ministry Of Finance put total lottery sales over the same six-month cycle at $29.2 billion, which represents a 3.5% boost year-on-year, while sports lottery sales jumped by 8.4% to 13.9 billion.

“We believe the China lottery market will continue to be challenging as a result of the constantly changing regulatory environment,” read a statement from MelcoLot Limited. “We remain prudent but optimistic about the development of the China lottery market.”

Away from the financials and MelcoLot Limited declared that it may “reassess the position and revisit the opportunity” of its terminated bid for a gaming license in order to develop a hotel and casino complex near Barcelona, Spain, “if the development plan of the project becomes more concrete”.

June saw the company terminate a deal that would have seen it acquire 99% of the issued shares of Melco Property Development, which is also a subsidiary of Melco International Development Limited, in order to bid for the right to operate a casino in the giant BCN World development just south of the Catalonian capital city. At the time, the firm claimed that the cancellation was due to “the timetable of the tender process for the casino authorization and the development of the project [remaining] relatively uncertain”.

“The exercise was to unlock the company’s potential to explore new business opportunities elsewhere as opposed to committing to an uncertain project for an indefinite time,” read the most recent statement from MelcoLot Limited.