How Many Tiles Are in American Mahjong?
By Roxanne Corbett, founder of Mischief Mahj
An American Mahjong set has 152 tiles: 108 suit tiles, 16 winds, 12 dragons, 8 flowers, and 8 jokers.
The full tile breakdown
Every standard American set is built the same way. Three suits of 36 tiles each make up the bulk of the set, and the honors, flowers, and jokers fill out the rest.
| Tile group | Count | Details |
|---|---|---|
| Bams (bamboo) | 36 | Numbers 1 through 9, four copies of each |
| Craks (characters) | 36 | Numbers 1 through 9, four copies of each |
| Dots (circles) | 36 | Numbers 1 through 9, four copies of each |
| Winds | 16 | North, East, West, and South, four of each |
| Dragons | 12 | Red, Green, and Soap (the white dragon), four of each |
| Flowers | 8 | Interchangeable with one another in most hands |
| Jokers | 8 | Wild tiles, legal only in groups of three or more |
| Total | 152 |
Why American sets have more tiles than Chinese sets
A Chinese Mahjong set has 144 tiles. The American game adds the 8 jokers, which do not exist in the Chinese game at all, bringing the count to 152.
The jokers change how the game plays. Because a joker can stand in for any tile inside a pung, kong, or quint, American hands can be rescued in ways Chinese hands cannot, and an entire layer of strategy exists around baiting, spending, and redeeming them.
How many tiles does each player hold?
Thirteen. Every player keeps a rack of 13 tiles between turns, and the dealer (East) begins with 14. On each turn a player draws or claims a fourteenth tile and then discards one, so the rhythm of the whole game is thirteen, fourteen, thirteen, fourteen. A winning hand is exactly 14 tiles that match one line on the current National Mah Jongg League card.