Riichi Mahjong Rules

Riichi mahjong, also called Japanese mahjong, is the variant you will meet in mahjong parlors across Japan, in clubs from Minneapolis to Manchester, and in online apps played by millions. What makes it different from Cantonese or Taiwanese mahjong is a handful of rules that shape every decision at the table:

• Yaku minimum. You cannot win without a yaku, a named scoring pattern.
• Riichi declaration. You can lock your hand in for a point bet and a scoring boost.
• Dora. Bonus tiles can multiply your score.
• Furiten. Passing up a winning tile blocks you from winning on discards.

This page walks through those rules in the order you meet them in a game, from the first deal to the final hand. If you are new to the game itself, start with how to play mahjong; if you want the arithmetic of han and fu, that is on the riichi scoring system page.

Tiles, walls and the 13-tile starting hand

A standard mahjong set contains 34 kinds of tiles, four copies of each: three suits numbered 1 to 9, plus honor tiles made up of winds and dragons. The full count is 136 tiles. Three-player mahjong, a growing format in Japanese parlors, uses a reduced set of 27 kinds and 108 tiles, with the 2 through 8 of the character suit removed⁴.

Before play begins, the tiles are shuffled face down and built into a wall: four rows of stacks, two tiles to a stack, arranged in a square. The traditional rule set describes a wall of 17 stacks per row¹. Each player then draws a starting hand of 13 tiles, and the dealer draws a 14th to begin. Thirteen is the number the classic game revolves around: the standard hand is built on thirteen tiles, a structure that goes back to the earliest ancestor of the game⁵, though not every variant uses a 13-tile hand. Your turn is draw one, discard one, and the aim is to arrange those 13 tiles so that one more tile completes a winning shape.

The honor tiles deserve a word because they carry weight in scoring:

• Winds: east, south, west and north
• Dragons: red, green and white

In the Hong Kong tradition the green dragon tile is the 發財, and a winning hand containing a set of them earns extra fan⁶. Riichi mahjong uses the same honor tiles, and sets of them are among the most common yaku.

The winning hand: four sets and a pair

The winning hand in mahjong is always the same shape: four sets and one pair, 14 tiles in all¹. A set is one of three things:

• Pung: three identical tiles
• Chow: three consecutive tiles of the same suit
• Kong: four identical tiles counted as one set

The pair is two identical tiles. Simple as that sounds, the whole strategy of the game is in which sets you chase and how you expose them.

Not every game uses the full shape. Simple Mahjong, a parlor variant with a five-tile hand, asks for just one set and one pair¹. But riichi, like Cantonese mahjong, keeps the classic four-and-a-pair structure.

What makes riichi distinctive is the yaku requirement. A yaku is a named scoring pattern in the hand, such as a closed hand won by self-draw, a set of dragons, or seven pairs. In riichi you cannot declare a win at all unless the hand contains at least one yaku; a hand that is structurally complete but patternless scores nothing and cannot even be called. Other variants draw the line in different places:

Riichi's one-yaku rule is the same idea in its simplest form: a win has to be worth something.

Declaring riichi

Riichi, the declaration that gives the variant its name, is a bet on your own hand. When your hand is one tile from winning and fully concealed, with no sets claimed from other players, you may declare riichi by placing a point stick on the table. From that moment your hand is locked: every tile you draw must be discarded unless it wins. In exchange:

• The riichi itself counts as a yaku, so even a hand with no other pattern can win
• It adds a han to the score

Waiting on your final tile is its own stage of the game. A player who needs just one more tile to complete the hand is said to be fishing⁷, and from that point every discard and draw from the wall matters. Not every game ends with a winner: when the last 14 tiles remain in the wall, the game is drawn and no scores are taken². A drawn game simply resets the table for the next hand, so a fishing hand that never completes costs you nothing in that round.

Riichi also changes the table around you. Once you have declared, other players know you are waiting, and the furiten rule governs what happens next. If a tile you are waiting on is discarded and you do not call it, you are in furiten: you may not win on a discard, only on a self-drawn tile. This is the rule that gives riichi mahjong its defensive depth, because a player who passes on a winning tile has told the table something and lost the right to pounce later.

Calls on discards: pungs, kongs and the chow restriction

When a player discards a tile, the other three get a chance to claim it, and the claims have a strict priority order¹:

A chow is different from the rest: only the player to the discarder's right, the next player in turn order, may claim a discard to form a chow, and doing so forfeits that turn's draw¹.

Claiming any tile opens your hand. An open hand is visible to everyone and loses access to some yaku, which is why strong players prefer to keep the hand closed and simply draw toward the win. There is also a small trap called kuikae: you may not make an open pung or chow and then discard a copy of the tile you just called in the same turn. The McGill club's tournament rules state plainly that "kuikae is disallowed"².

Three-player mahjong shows how flexible the chow rule is:

• In the standard three-player rules, chows are not allowed at all, to prevent early wins⁴
• In the Shin Sanma variant, a chow from the player to your left is allowed, which is why the format is sometimes called "three-player four-mahjong"⁴
• In Yokosuka Mahjong, another three-player form, chows are possible too⁴

In four-player riichi, the restriction to the player on your right is fixed.

When two players win on the same discard

Sometimes one discard completes two hands at once. The default resolution is positional: if one discard lets two or three players win, the player seated to the lower right of the discarder, counting counterclockwise, takes the win¹. The player closer to the discarder's right in turn order wins, and the other player is out of luck for that hand.

Not every rule set accepts that outcome. Some allow double ron, where both players win and both are paid, and the JanKenSo online rules go further and allow triple ron, three winners on a single discard⁸. In the Sega NET Mahjong MJ three-player arcade rules, a double ron is resolved in favor of the dealer if the dealer is one of the winners and is the furthest-upstream player⁸. If you are playing in a tournament, check which convention the organizers use before the first hand, because it changes how you defend when two players declare riichi.

Kongs: open, closed and the extra draw

A kong is four identical tiles declared as a single set. The mechanics are the same whether the kong is open or closed: a player holding three identical tiles may kong when the fourth is discarded, kongs may be exposed or concealed, and after any kong the player draws one tile from the dead-wall end of the wall and then discards one, keeping the hand at its proper size¹. That extra draw is the kong's real attraction, because every extra draw is another chance at the winning tile.

Kongs interact with the rest of the rules in ways worth knowing:

• A fourth kong by one player can trigger a draw in some rule sets, ending the hand with no score; the Sega NET arcade rules instead let play continue and simply forbid a fifth kong⁸
• A kong also turns a new dora indicator, which is why players sometimes declare a kong they do not strictly need: it reshuffles the bonus value of every hand at the table, including their own

How a win is paid

The winner is paid by the other players, and the amounts depend on whether the win was by discard or by self-draw, and whether the winner is the dealer. The core formulas in riichi are fixed⁹:

Fractions under 100 points are rounded up at the moment of payment⁹.

The basic point itself comes from the hand's fu and han, and every win starts with a base of 20 fu awarded automatically⁹. A closed hand won on a discard adds 10 fu for the closed-hand win⁹. The same hand can score differently depending on how the wait is read: a 3-han hand taken as a closed wait counts 40 fu and pays 1,300 to 2,600 points, where the same tiles read as a two-sided wait count 30 fu and pay less⁹. The full tables and the mangan cutoff are on the riichi scoring system page.

Dealer advantage runs through the payment rules in other variants too. In the Macau parlor rules, a winning dealer is paid double by all three other players, and when a non-dealer wins, the two other non-dealers pay single while the dealer pays double¹. The principle is the same everywhere: the dealer's wins cost more, which is why keeping the dealer seat matters.

Draws, tenpai and hands with no score

Not every hand ends with a winner. If the wall runs out and nobody declares mahjong, the hand is a draw: no scores are taken, and the tiles are reshuffled. What happens next depends on the renchan rule in force⁸:

• Tenpai renchan: a dealer who was tenpai, one tile short of a winning hand, keeps the dealer seat
• Agari renchan: the dealer repeats only by winning, and a tenpai dealer at a draw still passes the seat on

Renchan itself is simply one player serving as dealer across multiple consecutive hands, and its opposite, rinchan, is the dealer changing to the player on the dealer's right⁸.

Draws with no score are a familiar idea across Japanese games. In the hanafuda game Koi-Koi, if both players run out of cards without forming a yaku, the game is a draw and no points are scored¹⁰. Mahjong's exhausted-wall draw works the same way: nothing is won, nothing is paid, and the game moves on.

Some rules go further and refuse to score weak wins at all. In Mangan Mahjong, a hand that wins but scores below mangan, meaning less than five han, or less than 4 han and 40 fu, or less than 3 han and 70 fu, exchanges no points². Riichi does not go that far, but its one-yaku minimum serves the same purpose: a hand that is merely complete, with no pattern behind it, is not a win.

The full game: rounds and hands

A full game of riichi is organized into rounds named after winds, and each round contains one hand for each player's turn as dealer. The minimum game is the East Round and the South Round together, the hanchan format. In three-player mahjong, an east-south game is six hands, three in each round, not counting drawn hands⁴. In four-player play the same structure gives eight hands at minimum, and games run longer whenever the dealer repeats.

Shorter formats are common online and in parlors:

• East-only games (tonpuusen): just the East Round. The Sega NET arcade rules apply agari renchan to them, so the dealer repeats only on a win⁸
• JanKenSo online rules: use tenpai renchan instead, where a tenpai dealer at a draw also keeps the seat⁸

Which format you are playing changes the strategy a lot: in a one-round game, the dealer seat is worth fighting for early, because there is no South round to recover in.

Where you can play riichi

Riichi has spread far beyond Japan. A few markers of how wide the game now runs:

• Competitive mahjong tournaments in Japan are organized with sponsors who provide prize money to the winners, rather than players paying each other²
• Because the loser's payment does not come from the players themselves in these sponsored events, they fall outside the gambling offenses that apply to betting mahjong in Japan²
• In mainland China, mahjong is widely treated as a recreational activity rather than gambling, though legal sanctions can apply where gambling is involved³
• Club and tournament play, online and in person, is how most players outside Japan encounter the riichi form of the game

Online play is where most people now learn the game. Mahjong Soul is a Chinese game featuring the Japanese rules¹¹, and Sega NET Mahjong MJ Arcade runs both three-player and four-player games with their own published rule sets⁸. Mahjong Fight Club, a long-running Japanese platform, does not allow riichi with fewer than 1,000 points⁷. For where to find physical tables, see mahjong parlors, and for playing online, see online mahjong.

Playing for money in Japan

Here is the one point of law that matters to a player in Japan: betting mahjong is a crime regardless of the place or the name of the venue, including mahjong parlors, mahjong teaching facilities, homes and inns¹². The gambling offense carries a fine of up to JPY 500,000 or a petty fine for a person who gambles¹³, and repeated gambling can be charged as habitual gambling, which carries imprisonment of up to 3 years¹⁴. Courts treat money stakes as gambling regardless of the amount, so betting mahjong is in principle illegal at every rate, from JPY 10 per 1,000 points to far higher³. Wagering for money has been strictly and unambiguously illegal in Japan under legislation dating to 1908¹⁵.

The exception is competitive play. Where the loser's payment is not made by the player, or the winner's gain does not reach the player, as in sponsored tournaments with prize money put up by a sponsor, there is no gambling offense³. That is how Japan's professional mahjong leagues and prize tournaments operate legally.

Mahjong stakes in Hong Kong and mainland China

In mainland China, the official position on mahjong is that it is a recreational game, and the law draws its line at profit and scale. Mahjong among relatives and friends, not for profit, with small winnings and purely for leisure, is treated as legal entertainment protected by law¹⁶. Official guidance is explicit on both sides of the line:

• Games with money stakes among relatives, without a profit motive, are not punished¹⁷
• Games with small stakes among non-relatives are not punished either¹⁷
• Chess and card rooms offering normal games for leisure are lawful and protected¹⁸
• Mahjong played without a profit motive is generally not treated as gambling¹⁹

Hong Kong is different, and the type of premises decides the question. Licensed mahjong parlors are authorized under the Gambling Ordinance, alongside regulated horse racing, football betting and the Mark Six lottery²¹. Playing mahjong for money in unlicensed premises where rental or commission is charged for tables, tiles and chips is unlawful, and the participants may be committing a gambling offense²³. It is a common misconception that playing mahjong for money does not contravene the law; it does, outside the licensed and exempted settings²³. Games continued outside the prescribed business hours of a licensed mahjong school become illegal²³, and any unauthorized gambling activity is unlawful except where permitted by law²⁴.

Stakes themselves have a long history of being counted in chips rather than cash. In the Hong Kong game Shengguan Tu, each player contributes 100 chips to the common pool at the start of a session²⁵, a structure that survives in the way parlor mahjong is settled today.