BEIJING, Sept. 16 -- People in Beijing were not as eager as they were a year ago to buy lottery tickets in August, while the rest of China continued to place their hopes of getting rich overnight on random chance, according to official data released on Tuesday.

Chinese bet 31.5 billion yuan (5.13 billion U.S. dollars) on lotteries in August, 28.1 percent more than a year ago, the Ministry of Finance (MOF) said on its website. But in the national capital the figure was actually down 13 percent, year on year. Beijing was the only place in China that saw decline. The MOF gave no explanation.

Nationwide, sports lottery sales jumped 37 percent from a year ago to 14.5 billion yuan, while welfare lottery sales rose 21.4 percent to 17 billion yuan in August. For the first eight months, lottery sales increased 24.4 percent year on year to 247 billion yuan.

Lottery sales in Beijing during the January-August period still went up 19 percent to 8.33 billion yuan.