American Mahjong Rules: How to Play, Step by Step

American Mahjong (also spelled Mah Jongg) is a four-player tile game played by the rules of the National Mah Jongg League (NMJL). It grew out of the Chinese game in the 1920s, and the League has published a standard set of rules and an annual card of winning hands since 1937.

The goal is simple to state: be the first player to collect a hand that matches one of the hands on the current year’s NMJL card. This guide walks through everything between the shuffle and the payout, in the order it happens at the table.

American Mahjong at a Glance

• Players: four, each with a rack.
• Tiles: 152, including 8 Jokers.
• The card: a new NMJL card each spring lists every legal winning hand and its value.
• Before play: the Charleston, a structured exchange of tiles between players.
• On your turn: pick a tile, keep it or not, discard one tile and name it out loud.
• Calling: you can claim the latest discard to complete a group of three or more, or to win.
• Winning: call “Mahjong” when your 14 tiles exactly match a hand on the card.
• Paying: losers pay the hand’s value; whoever gave you the winning tile pays double.

What You Need

• A set of tiles. American sets are sold with 166 tiles or so, but play uses 152. Set aside any blanks, season tiles, and Jokers beyond eight.
• Four racks. Each player’s rack holds their tiles facing them. Most racks have a pusher arm for sliding the wall toward the center.
• Two dice.
• A current NMJL card for each player. Keep the card in front of you while you play; nobody is expected to memorize it.
• Something to pay with. Most groups play for small change, chips, or points.

The Tiles

American Mahjong is played with these 152 tiles:

Each Dragon belongs to a suit: Red goes with Craks, Green with Bams, and Soap with Dots. The card uses those pairings in its hands. Soap also doubles as a zero in hands built from the year’s digits.

Unlike in Chinese Mahjong, Flowers aren’t bonus tiles you set aside. They count as regular tiles, and any Flower matches any other Flower. For names of every tile and term, see our American Mahjong glossary.

The NMJL Card

The card is what makes American Mahjong different every year. It groups the legal hands into categories, such as the year hands, 2468, Like Numbers, Consecutive Runs, 13579, Winds and Dragons, 369, and Singles and Pairs. Each hand lists its value and is marked either X (exposed: you may call discards to build it) or C (concealed: you may call only your winning tile).

A winning hand must match a card hand exactly, including which suits and colors go where. If the notation is new to you, read our guide on how to read the NMJL card before your first game.

The League publishes a new card each spring, and groups switch to it once everyone at the table has one. You order it from nationalmahjonggleague.org in standard or large print. For timing, see when the new card comes out.

Setting Up

Choosing East

East is the first player to receive tiles and the first to discard. To pick the first East, each player rolls the dice, and the highest roll takes the East seat. After every hand, East passes to the player on the right.

Building the Wall

Turn all the tiles face down and shuffle them. Each player then builds a wall in front of their rack: 19 tiles long and two tiles high. Push the four walls together into a square in the middle of the table.

American Mahjong has no “dead wall.” Every tile in the square can be played.

Breaking the Wall

East rolls two dice and counts that many stacks in from the right end of their own wall, then separates the wall at that point. The tiles are taken from the break, and the stacks to the right of the break are the last ones played. Tiles come off the wall moving clockwise, even though turns go counterclockwise.

The Deal

In American Mahjong, each player takes their own tiles; East doesn’t hand them out.

1. Starting with East and going counterclockwise, each player takes four tiles (two stacks) from the wall.
2. Repeat twice more, so everyone has 12 tiles.
3. East then takes two more tiles (traditionally the first and third tiles from the top of the next stacks), and everyone else takes one.

Final count: East has 14 tiles, and everyone else has 13. If anyone has the wrong number, fix it before East’s first discard. After that, a player with the wrong count has a dead hand.

Arrange your tiles on your rack so they face you, then look over the card for hands your tiles suit.

The Charleston

Before the first discard, players trade tiles in a fixed sequence called the Charleston. It’s the ritual that makes American Mahjong feel different from every other version of the game. Each pass is three tiles.

1. First Charleston (required): pass right, then across, then left.
2. Second Charleston (optional): pass left, then across, then right. Any player may stop the Charleston after the first round, without giving a reason.
3. Courtesy pass (optional): trade zero to three tiles with the player across from you. Each of you names a number, and you exchange the lower one.

Two rules catch newcomers:

• Jokers can never be passed, at any point in the Charleston or in the courtesy pass. If one is passed by mistake, it’s handed back and replaced with another tile.
• Blind passes are allowed only on the last pass of each Charleston: the first left and the last right. On those passes, you may pass along one, two, or three of the tiles you were just handed without looking at them.

Our full guide to the Charleston covers the strategy of what to keep and what to pass.

Taking Turns

East starts play by discarding one tile. East already has 14 tiles, so East doesn’t pick first.

After that, play moves counterclockwise (to the right). On your turn:

1. Pick the next tile from the wall and place it on your rack.
2. Optionally exchange for Jokers in any exposure on the table (see Jokers below).
3. Discard one tile face up in the center, and say its name out loud (“5 Dot,” “North,” “Soap”).

Don’t pick ahead or look at the next tile before your turn. Picking out of turn or from the wrong spot in the wall makes your hand dead.

Discards Are Final

Once you’ve named a discard or it has touched the table, it’s final. You can’t take it back, and you can’t use it for a Joker exchange.

Name your discards carefully. If you misname a tile, nobody can call it for an exposure. If someone calls a misnamed tile to win, the game ends, and the player who misnamed it pays four times the hand’s value while the others pay nothing.

Discarding a Joker is allowed. Name it “Joker,” “same,” or the name of the previous discard. No one may claim it.

Calling Discards

When a player discards a tile you need, you can claim it instead of waiting for your turn. This is called calling. Say “call” clearly.

What You Can Call For

• A group of three or more identical tiles: a pung (3), kong (4), quint (5), or sextet (6). You may use Jokers from your hand to fill out the group.
• Any tile that completes your hand, which is called calling for Mahjong. This is the only time you can call a tile for a pair or a single.

You can’t call a tile to start a pair, and you can’t call for a run like 1-2-3. Sequence calls belong to Chinese Mahjong. If you’re playing a concealed (C) hand, the only discard you may call is your winning tile.

When You Can Call

Only the most recent discard can be called. Once the next player has picked a tile and placed it on their rack, or has discarded, it’s too late.

When Two Players Call the Same Tile

• A call for Mahjong beats a call for an exposure.
• If two players call for exposures, the player next in turn after the discarder gets it, unless the other player has already exposed their tiles. The size of the group doesn’t matter.
• If two players both call for Mahjong, the player next in turn wins.

After You Call

When you call for an exposure, place the called tile and the matching tiles from your hand face up on top of your rack. You don’t pick from the wall. Discard a tile, and play continues to your right. Skipped players have missed their turn.

Exposures

The groups you place face up after calling are your exposures. They stay on your rack, face up, for the rest of the hand. Lay them out in the order you make them.

• An exposure must be made of identical tiles. Jokers may stand in for any of them.
• A block of singles, like one of each Wind or the digits of the year, can’t be exposed except when you declare Mahjong.
• Every exposure has to fit a hand on the card. An exposure that doesn’t match any hand makes your hand dead.

Exposures tell the whole table what you’re building, so experienced players make them sparingly.

Jokers

Jokers are wild, with limits.

• A Joker can stand in for any tile in a group of three or more identical tiles: a pung, kong, quint, or sextet.
• A Joker can never be a single tile or part of a pair. That’s true in every hand, not only in Singles and Pairs.
• Quints and sextets always need Jokers, since there are only four of each regular tile (except Flowers, which have eight).
• A discarded Joker is dead. No one may call it.

Joker Exchanges

If any exposure on the table contains a Joker and you hold the real tile it’s standing in for, you may trade your tile for the Joker on your turn. You can redeem Jokers from your own exposures as well as your opponents’, and even from the valid exposures of a dead hand.

• Exchange only after you’ve picked from the wall or called a discard. Exchanging first makes your hand dead.
• Hand the real tile to the exposure’s owner, or place it in their exposure, and take the Joker.
• There’s no limit. If you can make several exchanges on one turn, make them all.
• A tile you’ve already discarded can’t be used for an exchange.

For every Joker rule in one place, read our guide to Jokers in American Mahjong.

Declaring Mahjong

When your 14 tiles exactly match a hand on the card, declare “Mahjong” and expose your whole hand so the table can check it. You can complete your hand in three ways:

• By picking the winning tile from the wall.
• By calling the winning tile from another player’s discard.
• By a Joker exchange that completes your hand. This counts as a self-picked win.

Check your hand before you expose it. The other players verify it against the card before anyone pays.

Mahjong in Error

Declaring Mahjong by mistake happens to everyone eventually.

• If you catch it before exposing any tiles, there’s no penalty. Play continues.
• If you’ve already exposed your tiles and the other three hands are still intact, your hand is dead, play continues without you, and you pay the eventual winner.
• If other players have already thrown in their hands because of your call, stricter NMJL penalties apply, so play carefully.

Dead Hands

A dead hand can no longer win. Common causes under NMJL rules:

• Having too many or too few tiles.
• Making an exposure that doesn’t match any hand on the card.
• Declaring Mahjong by mistake after exposing your tiles.
• Playing for a hand that isn’t on the current card.
• A hand that visibly can’t be completed, for example because it needs a tile when all four are already exposed or discarded.
• Exchanging for a Joker before you’ve picked.
• Picking out of turn or from the wrong wall.

Another player has to call your hand dead; you can’t declare it yourself. Once it’s dead, you stop picking and discarding, stay quiet about your tiles, and still pay the winner in full.

The Wall Game

If the last tile is picked and discarded and nobody has declared Mahjong, the hand is a wall game. No one pays. The tiles are shuffled, and East passes to the right.

Scoring and Paying

Every hand on the card has a value, usually between 25 and 50 points, with harder hands worth more. Payment depends on how the winning tile arrived:

Example: you win a 25-point hand.

• On a discard, the discarder pays 50 and the other two pay 25 each, for 100 total.
• If you picked the tile yourself, all three players pay 50, for 150 total.

No Jokers means your hand contains no Jokers at all. Singles and Pairs hands never earn the jokerless bonus, since Jokers aren’t allowed in them anyway. A dead hand still pays. Under current NMJL rules, East doesn’t pay or collect extra.

Rules New Players Most Often Get Wrong

• Passing a Joker in the Charleston. Never allowed.
• Calling too late. Once the next player has racked their tile or discarded, the last discard is gone.
• Calling for a pair. Only allowed when it wins the game.
• Exchanging for a Joker before picking. Pick or call first, then exchange.
• Letting a hand die quietly. A dead hand still pays, so check your tile count and your exposures.
• Using last year’s card. The hands change every spring.

House Rules

The NMJL publishes the official rules in its book Mah Jongg Made Easy, but many home groups add their own. Common ones include playing with blank tiles, skipping the Second Charleston by default, adjusting payments, and setting a pace-of-play rule. If you’re joining a new group, ask about table rules before the first hand. Good table etiquette covers the unwritten ones.

Practice Before You Play

American Mahjong has a lot of rules, but after a few games most of them become automatic. The fastest way there is to play hands, not read about them.

Mahj Parlour deals the tiles, runs the Charleston, and checks every hand against the card, so you can learn the rules by playing. Its free interactive lessons cover everything in this guide at your own pace. Practice against bots, then set up a private table when your group is ready. If you’re comparing options, our guide to the best American Mahjong apps for iPhone covers the main choices.