Beginners guide to mahjong at Gamdom

Mahjong is a commonly-played game around the world with many similarities to poker. Just like the Vegas strip favourite, it is also commonly played only among friends or at a local gambling house rather than at the casino. You can play a lot of mahjong-themed games at Gamdom following different rules but it’s fun to learn the original.

Mahjong is played using tiles with images on them. One standard set has 136 pieces but it can be extended to 144 or 152 when using the complete set which is not part of the default game mode. Just like online poker, the rules of mahjong revolve around forming the best hand combination using tiles of different patterns. Here’s how to play the mahjong casino game:

Mahjong tiles classifications

Buying a full set of mahjong tiles gives you a total of 152 pieces. The most popular game mode is the one where the flowers are included but no jokers so there are 144 tiles in a pile. Here’s a quick explanation of what each set of mahjong tiles looks like. They will have certain variations because many software providers wish to exercise their creative freedom giving you more variety when you play mahjong online. 

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Suit of Cracks (characters) - 4 sets of 9 pieces

Suits of cracks are often called just ‘characters’ and they are all written in Chinese. They all feature the character wàn (萬) written in red and occupying the majority of the tile. Above it is the character saying its number ranging from 1 to 9. Wan means 10,000 and it’s a symbol for ‘many’ or ‘great numbers’. 

Suit of Bams (bamboo sticks) - 4 sets of 9 pieces

Bams are bamboo sticks also ranging from 2 to 9 indicated by how many pieces there are on the image. Most of them are green but numbers 5, 7, and 9 have red jones. The number 7 is the only suit of bams with blue sticks. 

One out of the set of nine deviates from the theme and that’s the tile for number 1. Instead of a bamboo stick, it features an image of a bird, usually a peacock but sometimes a sparrow with green feathers and red feet. 

Suit of Dots (balls and circles) - 4 sets of 9 pieces

Dots are sometimes called ‘stones’, ‘circles’, or ‘balls’ depending on what the software provider used as images. This set is the most colourful out of the three with varying use for red, blue, and green. They almost resemble dominos and dice except 6 leaves a gap between a pair of green and four red dots. 

Honours (wind direction and dragons) - 4 sets of 7 pieces

Honours have no numbers unlike tiles in three suits. Instead, it includes four directions of the wind or arrows namely east, south, west, and north. The other three images are called ‘dragons’ but only two of them are pictures of dragons. Honours come with more variety than the suits, usually for the sake of localisation. 

American mahjong features a red and green dragon for two tiles while the third features a blue frame with nothing inside. The Chinese and Japanese versions have a green character written as ‘Fā’ (發) to represent wealth and red ‘Zhōng’ (中) for success or benevolence. The third image can also be a blue frame but it can also be completely blank. 

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Optional (flowers and seasons) - 1 set of 8 pieces

Despite being called ‘optional’, these pieces are always included in some of the most popular versions of mahjong. This is true in North America, China, and Japan alike. Some versions of mahjong use them as wilds to replace missing pieces in a winning hand. Alternatively, they can also be jokers in a party game to add traps. 

There are two sets of optional suits but they always come together in every game mode. The first set features flowers namely bamboo, chrysanthemum, orchids, and plum. They are numbered 1 to 4 respectively. Seasons are also numbered 1 to 4 featuring winter, spring, summer, and fall. 

Jokers - 1 set of 8 pieces

Unlike the other sets, jokers are almost exclusively American by origin but adapted by Singaporeans and Malaysians in the modern age. There are 8 pieces and all of them are identical. Its image is that of a dragon within a circle frame and there is a word ‘joker’ right above it. There is rarely a mahjong casino game that uses this but if it’s present, then it works similarly to the optional pieces. The only difference is that you cannot use two or more jokers in the same winning hand.

Basic objectives of the game (winning hands)

Learning how to play mahjong online requires getting familiar with the above identifications of the mahjong pieces. It’s the first step to understanding how winning works in any mahjong-related games whether it’d be the original tabletop setup or slots at Gamdom. Every winning combination consists of patterns like matching tiles or consecutive orders. A pattern is called a ‘meld’ and here are four kinds that you can find in a standard hand:

• Eye/pair - Two copies of the same tile
• Pong - Three copies of the same tile
• Gong/kong - Four copies of the same tile
• Chow/chi - Three tiles of the same suit with consecutive numbers

A winning hand needs at least one eye to count then the rest of the hand needs to create three to four non-eye melds. There are 14 tiles in a hand and the same piece cannot count for more than one meld. Here are all possible combinations:

• Eye and three gongs
• Eye and four pongs
• Eye, chow, and three pongs
• Eye, two chows, and two pongs
• Eye, three chows, and one pong
• Eye, and four chows

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Process of a mahjong game

The best way to truly learn to play mahjong is through orientation of how a standard round goes. Here’s a quick overview of what goes in one game from start to finish. A competitive mahjong casino game will have several rounds and a point system but a casual game is simply who gets a winning hand first. 

Setup

Mahjong online games aren’t usually played in its popular arrangement of four players per table but they include a majority of its set up rules. Each player rolls dice and whoever rolls the highest becomes the dealer or first to play. Traditionally, it’s two pieces of six-sided dice but groups prefer one or three. Once a dealer is decided, you may begin setting up the table.

All tiles facing down and scattered around the table and everyone shuffles them by hand. Once everyone is satisfied, each player begins constructing their respective walls. This is a series of two stacks of tiles with a total of 18 pieces per player. 17 if you’re playing without flowers and 19 if you have jokers. Draw these piles together and everyone takes random stacks to make their hand of 13 pieces and line them up standing facing their side. The remaining pieces are stacked together to form the ‘draw pile’.

Play

The dealer begins with 14 tiles instead of 13 then starts the game by discarding one tile then the player to their right follows. Every player following the dealer has two possible actions. The first is to draw a card from the draw pile then discard another. If you have a potential meld using the piece discarded by the previous player, then you can shout which kind of meld it is then claim that tile. 

Melds formed by stealing discarded pieces are revealed from your hand then placed on the table for all to see. If you have a meld in your standing tiles, then these are hidden. You are not obligated to reveal them until you yell ‘mahjong’. Two or more players can steal a discarded tile if they yell a meld at the same time. However, the one who gets it is the one who yells pong. It’s impossible to have two players yell either pong or gong at the same time because there are only four copies of each tile.

The game ends with whoever yells ‘mahjong’ first. Casual games usually reset immediately after and simply pay the winner the pot if they are playing with bets. Tournaments are more complex where every kind of winning hand is scored but the criteria, scoring rules, and how the overall victor differs between regions. It’s better to stick to the basics if you are a beginner.

Mahjong-inspired games you can play at Gamdom

Besides the above way to play mahjong, you can also win real cash prizes at some mahjong-inspired titles at Gamdom. One such example is Mahjong 88 from Play’n GO. It’s a slot game with tile-matching mechanics. You win every time a meld is created using suits and flower tiles.

Another great game to check out is Mahjong Panda from Pragmatic Play. It is a scatter slot where you win as long as there are three or more matching tiles on the screen. Both games expand on how to win mahjong online, allowing you to get more fun combinations with big payouts. Try them out now using your chosen cryptocurrencies at Gamdom, the best online casino.

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Words: Clarence Clarke