Updated 10 September 2026 · American Mahjong (NMJL card) · Mah Jongg Master Points item 13, with the related items
Short version: the winner scores the card value of the hand, plus 10 for picking it and plus 20 for no jokers (except Singles and Pairs). Everyone scores 10 on a wall game. An unfinished game is 0 for all. The player who throws the winning tile loses 10, 20 or 25 depending on how many exposures the winner had. Everyone else scores 0.
Tournament scoring is the NMJL card's values with a fixed set of bonuses and penalties on top [item 13]. There are only ten lines, but new players get two of them wrong on most score cards, so the table below is worth printing and putting on every table.
| Situation | Points | Who | Rule |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mah Jongg | card value | the winner | 13 |
| … picked own Mah Jongg (self-pick) | +10 | the winner | 13.1 |
| … no jokers in the hand | +20 | the winner | 13.2 — no bonus on any Singles and Pairs hand |
| Wall game (nobody wins) | +10 | each player | 13.3 |
| … but a dead hand in a wall game | −10 | the dead player | 13.8; a dead player never gets the 10 (13.4) |
| Incomplete game (time called) | 0 | everyone | 13.4 |
| Threw the winning tile; winner had 0 or 1 exposures | −10 | the thrower | 13.5 |
| Threw the winning tile; winner had 2 exposures | −20 | the thrower | 13.6 |
| Threw the winning tile; winner had 3 exposures | −25 | the thrower | 13.7 |
| Mis-named the discard that gave Mah Jongg | −25 | the discarder | 13.9, 14.3 |
| Heavenly hand (East dealt a complete hand) | card value only | East | 13.10 — no self-pick bonus |
| Looked at a stolen (blind-pass) tile | −10 | that player | 6 |
Two things the table does not say, because they follow from it: there is no thrower penalty on a self-picked Mah Jongg — nobody threw anything — and the other two players at the table score 0 on a Mah Jongg game whatever happened to them.
Singles and Pairs hands cannot use jokers at all, so every one of them is jokerless by definition. That is exactly why the rule gives them no jokerless bonus [item 13.2]. A card that shows 50 + 20 for a Singles and Pairs hand is wrong by 20, and it is the most common correction a director makes.
The penalty is set by the number of exposures on the winner's rack when they declared, not the thrower's. Count the exposures on top of the winner's rack: none or one is −10, two is −20, three is −25 [items 13.5–13.7]. A concealed hand that was thrown in costs the thrower 10, however unlucky it looks.
Barbara declares Mah Jongg on a 30-point hand with two exposures on her rack, using one joker, on a tile Linda discarded. Barbara scores 30. Linda scores −20. The other two score 0.
Susan picks her own Mah Jongg on a 25-point hand with no jokers, and it is not a Singles and Pairs hand. Susan scores 25 + 10 + 20 = 55. Nobody is penalised; the others score 0.
Carol picks her own 50-point Singles and Pairs hand. Singles and Pairs never carry the jokerless bonus, so Carol scores 50 + 10 = 60, not 80.
The wall runs out. Nancy's hand had been declared dead earlier in the game. Nancy scores −10; the other three score +10 each.
The clock runs out during the fourth game with the wall half gone. The game is incomplete: all four score 0 for that game, whatever their hands looked like [item 13.4]. It is the rule that keeps a tournament on time.
Each table's card has one line per game and a round total per player. A verifies C's line and C verifies A's; B and D verify each other's, and each initials what they checked [item 4]. The scorekeeper does not accept an unverified card. After the fourth game one player — East in round one, North in round two, West in round three, South in round four [item 24] — collects all four cards and hands them in together. Once accepted, a card does not change [item 25]; a dispute means all four players at the director's table, and the director's ruling is final [item 26].
Mahjong Director scores it for you. In detailed mode you enter each game as the card shows it — winner, card value, self-pick, jokerless, Singles and Pairs, who threw, how many exposures, any dead hands — and every bonus and penalty above is applied automatically, so the app's totals match a correctly filled card. In simple mode you just type the round totals. Either way a blank stays a blank.
Open the appNo. A self-picked Mah Jongg has no thrower. The penalty applies only when the winning tile was a discard, and it is set by the winner's exposures at that moment.
Claiming a discard for an exposure and then exchanging a tile from the hand for a joker in another player's exposure, and declaring with that new tile, is a self-picked Mah Jongg [item 12.2]. Exchanging for a joker within your own hand is not [item 12.3].
No [item 13.10]. East scores the card value only.
Hand values are the card's. The bonuses and penalties above are the tournament layer, and the rulebook notes that social and home rules may differ in places.
Sources: Mah Jongg Master Points, Official Standardized National Mah Jongg Rules for
Tournaments (May 2017), items 4, 6, 12, 13, 14, 24–26.
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