Comparing Mahjong Payment Systems

A mahjong “payment system” determines how many points the winner gains and each of the other three players loses, based on the value of the winning hand. This is not a term used universally across mahjong rulesets. Chinese Official Mahjong, for example, simply calls it “calculation of scores.” The Chinese expressions 得分授受法, 授受法, and 授受制 are more specialized terms used when comparing and analyzing different rulesets.

The idea of “giving and receiving” points originated in gambling: the winner’s gain necessarily comes from the losers’ losses. A mahjong payment system therefore requires the four players’ scores to sum to zero. From the perspective of modern games, positive scores for winners and negative scores for losers are common—for example, in UNO—and equal gains and losses summing to zero do not themselves imply gambling. A mahjong payment system could equally be called a “mahjong scoring system.” However, calculating the value of a winning hand also involves adding or multiplying the values of its scoring patterns according to particular principles, and this is usually called “scoring” too. To avoid confusion, this article uses “payment system” for the distribution of points among players.

There are two ways to win: by self-draw or on another player’s discard. Self-draw is the simpler case: the three losing players generally each pay their own share, with relatively little variation among rulesets. The main differences concern wins on discard. From the classical dealer-double system to the later discarder-double system, Japanese full-discarder payment, and Chinese Official Mahjong’s “triple payment for self-draw,” there are two central variables: whether the winner receives the same amount as dealer or non-dealer, or by self-draw or discard; and how the losses are distributed among the other three players. The table below summarizes these differences for wins on discard. Its main sources are “A Historical Perspective on Zung Jung Mahjong” and “A Brief Discussion of Guangdong Mahjong—as a Development of Classical Mahjong and a Foundation for Competitive Mahjong.”

Payment framework	Shared, 2:1:1	Shared, 1:1:1	Shared, discarder-double	Full discarder payment	Discarder’s own share only	Shared small-hand payments, capped other-player payments for large hands
Dealer-double	Classical	—	Guangdong Old Style	Japanese full-discarder	—	—
Discarder-double	Hong Kong half-discarder	—	—	Hong Kong full-discarder	Taiwanese half-discarder; Chinese Official	Four Seas
Fixed income	Zung Jung discarder-weighted	Zung Jung equal-share	—	Guangdong New Style; Zung Jung full-discarder; K-shen	—	Zung Jung competitive

1. The dealer-double system

Classical mahjong originally used dealer-double payments: the dealer gained or lost twice as much as a non-dealer. In the classical period, hand valuation depended primarily on minipoints, with fan playing a supporting role, so there was no separate concept of dealing in and no corresponding discarder liability. Yet the dealer had to pay double even when another player discarded the winning tile. This disadvantaged the dealer and reveals an unreasonable feature of the system. Attempts to improve it introduced discarder liability along two independent paths: Guangdong Old Style combined dealer-double and discarder-double payments, while Japanese mahjong adopted full-discarder payment. The following table compares point transfers under these three dealer-double systems.

D = dealer; N1, N2, and N3 = the three non-dealers. Positive numbers are gains; negative numbers are losses.

Winner	Discarder / win method	Ruleset	D	N1	N2	N3
D	Self-draw	All three	6	-2	-2	-2
N1	Self-draw	All three	-2	4	-1	-1
D	N1	Classical	4	-2	-1	-1
D	N1	Japanese	4	-4	0	0
D	N1	Guangdong Old Style	4	-2	-1	-1
N1	D	Classical	-2	4	-1	-1
N1	D	Japanese	-4	4	0	0
N1	D	Guangdong Old Style	-2	3	-0.5	-0.5
N1	N2	Classical	-2	4	-1	-1
N1	N2	Japanese	0	4	-4	0
N1	N2	Guangdong Old Style	-1	2.5	-1	-0.5

All three systems give the same transfers for a dealer’s or non-dealer’s self-draw. On a discard win, Japanese full-discarder payment makes the discarder cover all three losing players’ shares. Guangdong Old Style also distinguishes the discarder, but allocates payments between the discarder and each other losing player in a 2:1 ratio. Both classical Japanese mahjong and modern Japanese riichi mahjong retain the dealer distinction, whereas regional Chinese payment systems no longer distinguish dealers from non-dealers. There are, of course, other dealer-related rules, such as consecutive dealership and additional dealer stakes.

2. The discarder-double system

Guangdong Old Style’s combination of dealer-double and discarder-double payments is complicated. As dealer-double payments receded, discarder-double payments became mainstream. The discarder replaces the dealer as the player who pays a double share; correspondingly, a self-drawing winner receives double shares in place of the dealer’s privilege. Under classical dealer-double payments, a dealer’s self-draw earns 6 units and a non-dealer’s earns 4: a ratio of 1.5. Under discarder-double payments, a self-draw earns 6 units and a discard win earns 4, so self-draw earns 1.5 times as much. According to Fan Ye, Hong Kong mahjong uses this system with two payment methods, “half-discarder” and “full-discarder”:

① Half-discarder: the discarder pays two shares and the other two players pay one share each. On self-draw, all three pay two shares each.
② Full-discarder: the winner receives the same amount as under half-discarder payment, but the discarder covers the entire payment for a discard win.
Under either method, self-draw earns 1.5 times the total received for a discard win at the same fan value.

These correspond to the shared-payment and full-discarder-payment columns in the discarder-double row of the first table. Terms such as “full-discarder” and “half-discarder” mean different things in different rulesets, so they need qualifiers—for example, Japanese full-discarder versus Hong Kong full-discarder—or a complete definition, such as “discarder-double with shared payment” and “discarder-double with full discarder payment.”

Taiwanese mahjong’s full-discarder arrangement differs from Hong Kong’s: the discarder pays only their own share, without covering the other two players. Self-draw remains unchanged: each player pays 2 units, totaling 6. On a discard win, however, the discarder pays only 2 and the other two pay nothing, so the winner receives 2 units—one-third of the self-draw amount. This may have arisen under the influence of Japanese full-discarder payment: players who did not deal in questioned why they should pay, while the discarder did not want to cover their shares. Taiwanese “full-discarder” can thus be described as half payment: the discarder pays only their own portion. The direct result is “triple payment for self-draw.” The 6-versus-2 relationship can be simplified to 3 versus 1, evolving into Chinese Official Mahjong’s self-draw tripling. In fact, Chinese Official scoring combines base payments with this tripling.

3. Fixed-income systems

Fixed income means that the winner receives the same amount regardless of dealer status or whether the win is by self-draw or discard. The earliest such rules are reportedly Guangdong New Style’s “Anything Goes” rules, which used fixed income with full-discarder payment. Their lifespan and influence were limited. Zung Jung Mahjong was the ruleset that began studying payment systems scientifically and actively advocating fixed income. “A Historical Perspective on Zung Jung Mahjong” repeatedly emphasizes this:

Zung Jung established the “fixed-income principle,” stressing that it is an immutable principle rather than merely an ordinary rule.

Zung Jung invented its competitive payment system, sharing payments for small hands while placing the additional burden of large hands on the discarder. This creatively addressed the different responsibilities involved in dealing into small and large hands, substantially improving on full-discarder payment. Zung Jung also offered alternatives: equal-share, discarder-weighted, and full-discarder systems. These are different ways of allocating shared or full payments within a fixed-income framework. The core of Zung Jung’s payment system is therefore fixed income, reflecting Kwan’s position that the dealer has no special privileges and self-draw does not merit a reward.

The rejection of dealer privilege follows the removal of that privilege from payment systems across China. The rejection of a self-draw reward follows Japanese full-discarder payment, under which self-draw and discard wins yield the same income. This fixed-income principle clearly has influence. For example, K-shen Mahjong, a modification of Chinese Official Mahjong, stresses:

“Full-discarder payment is essential for competitive mahjong.”

Here, full-discarder payment means that the discarder pays the entire amount within a fixed-income system.

Within a fixed-income framework, Zung Jung’s competitive approach—sharing small-hand payments and capping the other players’ payments for large hands—is the best payment system. It improves on full-discarder payment by addressing liability for unpredictable small hands, and partly corrects the excessive defense caused by heavy discarder liability in Japanese full-discarder systems.

References (titles translated from Chinese):

• A Historical Perspective on Zung Jung Mahjong
• A Brief Discussion of Guangdong Mahjong—as a Development of Classical Mahjong and a Foundation for Competitive Mahjong
• Design Rationale for Jiaozhu Mahjong Rules, Version 2.51