Players arriving from Chinese, Japanese or Hong Kong mahjong expect scoring to be the hard part. In American mah jongg it is the easiest part, and that is by design.
There is no han. There is no fu. There are no limit hands to argue about, no yaku to memorise. Every legal hand has its value printed next to it on the annual card, and the settlement follows a short list of rules you can learn in five minutes.
Where the number comes from
Look at any line on the NMJL card. Next to the hand you will see a number, typically between 25 and 75. That is the value of the hand. It does not change based on how you won it, how long it took, or how many jokers you used. A 40-point hand is worth 40 points whether you built it in six draws or sixteen.
The value reflects difficulty: cheap hands — 25 or 30 points — are common, flexible and easy to complete; expensive hands, 50 to 75, are narrow, specific and hard to finish. A hand that needs a kong of dragons plus two like pungs in different suits is worth more than a hand that needs any three consecutive runs in one suit, because you will complete the second one far more often.
The settlement
Here is the part that most guides get wrong, so read it carefully. There are two multipliers, and they stack.
First — how you won the hand.
- Self-pick (you drew the winning tile off the wall): all three other players pay you double the card value.
- Off a discard (you called it): the player who discarded it pays double; the other two pay single.
Take a 25-point hand. As a self-pick you collect 50 from each of three players — 150. Off a discard you collect 50 from the thrower and 25 from each of the other two — 100.
Notice what that means: a self-pick pays more in total, even though a discard spreads the cost over four people. Players who are one tile away will often decline to call and hold out for the draw, and now you know why.
Second — whether you used a joker.
Under official NMJL rules, a winning hand containing no jokers at all doubles its value. This is not a house rule — it is part of the standard scoring, with one exception: Singles-and-Pairs hands are exempt, because those hands forbid jokers anyway.
The two multipliers stack. A 25-point hand, self-picked and jokerless, pays 100 from every player — 300 total, the four-times ceiling in standard scoring.
What does not double: concealed hands. A concealed hand is already worth more — that higher figure is printed right on the card. Do not double it again.
East. Whether the dealer pays and receives double is genuinely unsettled across the sources; treat it as a table agreement rather than an NMJL rule and settle it before the first deal, alongside the second Charleston and the courtesy pass.
Concealed hands
A concealed hand is one where you never exposed a group and never called a discard except the winning tile. Concealed hands are marked on the card and generally carry a higher value, because they are harder and because they give the table nothing to read.
The trade-off is real. An exposed hand is safer — once a pung is on the table, nobody can take it away from you, and you are visibly closer to winning. A concealed hand is worth more but can fall apart if the tiles never come.
What the card does not settle
A few things are genuinely up to the table, and the easiest way to avoid an argument is to agree them before the first deal:
- Scoring method. Some groups keep score in points, some use chips or counters. Pick one.
- The second Charleston and the courtesy pass. Both optional. Settle them out loud.
- Penalties. What happens when someone makes an illegal exposure, or calls mah jongg on a hand that is not there? Most groups are lenient with new players and strict with themselves. Decide where your table sits.
- Dead hands. If a wall runs out, the hand is a draw. Most groups simply redeal, some rotate the deal.
The practical advice
Keep a scorecard. Not because the arithmetic is hard, but because four players doing mental arithmetic at the end of eight hands will eventually disagree, and a scorecard ends the conversation instantly.
And settle at the end of the session, not after every hand. Constant small payments slow the game down and put an unhelpful edge on what is supposed to be an afternoon with friends.
Why this design is good
The fixed-value card is the single best thing about American mah jongg for a new player. You never have to calculate. You never have to argue about whether something counted. You look at the line, you read the number, and three people pay you. Everything difficult about this game happens before the win; the scoring is meant to be the part you do not have to think about.