How scoring works in American Mahjong
When someone calls Mah Jongg, the other players pay them. How much depends on three things: the value of the hand, how the last tile arrived, and whether the hand used any jokers.
Want the math done for you? The score tracker asks three questions and keeps the running totals.
Start with the card
Every hand on the current card has a point value printed beside it. That number is where scoring starts. Nothing about the hand itself changes the value. A hand is worth what the card says, no more and no less.
The examples below use a hand worth 25 points. Swap in whatever your card says.
Who pays, and how much
There are two cases, and the difference is where the winning tile came from.
The winning tile was somebody's discard
The player who discarded it pays double the hand value. The other two players pay the hand value once.
| Hand worth 25 | Pays |
|---|---|
| The discarder | 50 |
| Each of the other two | 25 |
| Winner collects | 100 |
The winner picked the winning tile from the wall
Everyone pays double.
| Hand worth 25 | Pays |
|---|---|
| Each of the three others | 50 |
| Winner collects | 150 |
A joker exchange counts as a wall pick. If you swap a natural tile for an exposed joker and that joker finishes your hand, you are paid as though you drew the winning tile yourself.
The jokerless bonus
If the winning hand has no jokers in it at the moment Mah Jongg is called, every payment doubles again. It does not matter whether you used a joker earlier and exchanged it away. What counts is the hand on the table at the end.
| Hand worth 25, jokerless | From a discard | From the wall |
|---|---|---|
| The discarder | 100 | 100 |
| Each other player | 50 | 100 |
| Winner collects | 200 | 300 |
One exception. Hands in the Singles and Pairs section of the card cannot use jokers at all, so they never get a jokerless bonus. Their printed value already accounts for the difficulty.
When nobody wins
If the wall runs out before anyone calls Mah Jongg, it is a wall game. Nothing is paid. Shuffle and deal the next hand.
Three players
The same rules apply, there is simply one fewer person paying. On a discard win worth 25, the discarder pays 50 and the other player pays 25, so the winner collects 75. Nobody pays a share for the missing fourth seat.
Paying for the table
You will hear this phrase. It means one player pays the winner four times the hand value and nobody else pays anything. In the standard rules it is a penalty for specific mistakes, such as playing out of turn and then discarding the tile that gives someone Mah Jongg.
Many groups also make a player pay for the table for discarding the winning tile to an obvious hand, one with three exposures showing. That is a house rule, not the standard rule, and it belongs in the conversation before the first deal. There is more on it in house rules.
A few things that do not change the score
- A concealed hand is worth its printed value. There is no extra multiplier for keeping it concealed.
- Calling the final tile from a discard to complete a hand is still a discard win, even for a concealed hand.
- A player whose hand has been declared dead still pays when someone else wins.
Keeping the tally
Scores always balance. Whatever the winner collects is exactly what the others paid, so the totals around the table add up to zero at any moment. If they do not, someone wrote a number down wrong. The score tracker does the arithmetic and keeps a log of every hand, so the argument is over before it starts.
Payments described here follow the standard American game, checked by an experienced player in our group. Values always come from your own card; this site never lists hands.