American Mah Jongg has no running tally of points from tiles, as Chinese mahjong does. A hand is worth exactly what the card says, and the only question is who pays the winner and how many times.
Where a hand's value comes from
Every hand on the card has its value printed beside it, usually 25 to 50. Harder hands are worth more: concealed hands, the singles and pairs, and quints. Most home games play the value as cents, so a 25 hand is a quarter; others keep score on paper.
Who pays
| How the hand was won | The player who threw the winning tile | Each other player |
|---|---|---|
| On a discard | 2x the value | 1x |
| On a tile the winner drew | 2x each | |
| The wall ran out | nobody pays | nobody pays |
A hand won with no jokers doubles every payment again. It does not apply to hands in Singles and Pairs (no joker can be used there anyway) or Quints. At a real table, the winner has to say "jokerless" when declaring, or the bonus is lost.
A player whose hand is dead still pays like everyone else.
A winds hand with no jokers in it. Won on a throw, it pays the jokerless double on top of the thrower's double.
Worked examples
Take a hand worth 25.
- Won on a discard, with a joker in it. The thrower pays 50, the other two pay 25 each. The winner collects 100.
- Won on a tile the winner drew, with a joker. All three pay 50. The winner collects 150.
- Won on a discard, no jokers. Everything doubles: the thrower pays 100, the other two 50 each. The winner collects 200.
- Won on a tile the winner drew, no jokers. All three pay 100, four times the value. The winner collects 300.
Why it is scored this way
The double for the thrower is the cost of feeding the winner: it is why careful players stop throwing dangerous tiles once someone is close, and why a dead hand is not a reason to relax. The double for a self-drawn win rewards finishing on your own. The jokerless double rewards the harder way of building a hand.
Tournament scoring is different
Tournaments score in points, and each organizer sets its own bonuses and penalties: typically a flat bonus for a self-drawn win and for no jokers, points for everyone in a wall game, and points taken from the player who throws the winning tile. American Mah Jongg tournaments has the details.
At the school
The school's table pays every hand this way, jokerless double included, and the report card shows what each hand paid. For a real table with real tiles, the scorekeeper does the arithmetic for a whole night.
Questions
How do you score American Mah Jongg?
A winning hand is worth the value printed beside it on the card. On a discard, the thrower pays twice that and the other two pay it once; on a tile the winner drew, all three pay twice. A hand with no jokers doubles every payment again, except in Singles and Pairs and Quints.
Does a jokerless hand pay double?
Yes, under the National Mah Jongg League's rules: every payment doubles, and it stacks with the self-drawn double. It does not apply in Singles and Pairs or Quints, and the winner must announce it.
Who pays in mah jongg when someone wins on a discard?
The player who threw the winning tile pays double the hand's value; the other two players pay the value once.
Sources
Sloperama, Mah-Jongg FAQ 19 for the League's payment rules, the jokerless double and its exceptions; the school's rules page. Tournament scoring: Mah Jongg Master Points rules, Mah Jongg Fever rules.