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How Many Tiles Are in American Mahjong? All 152 Explained

· 5 min read

An American Mahjong set has 152 tiles.

That's the whole answer, and if you're standing in a shop trying to tell whether the pretty set in front of you is the real deal, that's the number to check for. A proper American set has 152 working tiles. Some sets ship with a couple of spares in case one wanders off, so you might count 154 or 156 in the box, and 152 is the set you actually play with.

Here's what those 152 tiles are, why you start with 13 of them (unless you're East, in which case, lucky you, 14), and how the deal works, explained the way a friend would lean over and walk you through it.

What are the 152 tiles made of?

The set breaks into a few families, and once you see the pattern it stops looking like 152 tiny random rectangles.

The three suits: 108 tiles. Dots, Bams, and Craks. Each suit runs 1 through 9, and there are four copies of every number. Nine numbers, four copies, three suits, and you're already at 108, which is most of the set. Dots look like little circles. Bams are bamboo sticks, except the 1 Bam, which is almost always a bird (a sparrow, if you were wondering where a certain app got its name). Craks are the ones with the Chinese character and a number stacked together.

The winds: 16 tiles. North, East, South, West, four of each.

The dragons: 12 tiles. Red, Green, and White, four of each. The White dragon leads a double life as the soap, the tile that plays the zero in year hands. If that one has ever made your head tilt, you're in excellent company, and we wrote the full soap explainer for exactly that reason.

The flowers: 8 tiles. They might show different paintings, different colors, different little garden scenes, and for hand building they all count as the same thing.

The jokers: 8 tiles. The wild cards. A joker can stand in for tiles inside a group of three or more, and it famously can't be a single or a pair, which is the rule that catches every new player at least once. We keep the joker rules in one place so you can settle any table debate in about ten seconds.

Add it up. 108 plus 16 plus 12 plus 8 plus 8. There's your 152.

How many tiles do you start with?

You start with 13 tiles. Three of the four players hold 13. The dealer, East, starts with 14, because East kicks off the game with the very first discard and needs one extra tile to throw.

If you've ever counted your rack mid-Charleston and had a small private heart attack because you had 14 and everyone else seemed to have 13, this is why. During the passing rounds the counts shuffle around by design. What matters is where you land when the dust settles. A completed, winning hand is 14 tiles. You get there either by picking the tile you need off the wall or by claiming the right discard, and then you're done.

Why does East get 14 tiles?

Because somebody has to go first, and going first means throwing the first tile.

East deals and East opens. To make that opening discard, East needs one more tile than everybody else, so the deal hands East 14 and the other three 13. East throws one away, drops back down to 13 like the rest of the table, and the game rolls counterclockwise from there.

It's a small thing, and knowing it saves you that flicker of panic when you notice your neighbor holding one more tile than you at the start. She's East. She's supposed to. Next game the deal moves along and it might be you.

What is the wall, and how many tiles go in it?

Before anybody picks up a hand, all 152 tiles get shuffled face down (that glorious clattering shuffle is called the wash) and built into four walls, one in front of each player.

Each player builds a wall that's 19 tiles long and two tiles high. Nineteen times two is 38, and 38 times four players is, yes, 152. Every tile in the set has a home in the wall before the deal starts. Then a roll of the dice decides where to break it open, and the dealing begins.

You don't have to build a perfect wall your first time, or your tenth. The player next to you will happily help you square yours up, because a slightly crooked wall is a rite of passage and everyone at that table has built a wonky one. Blame the tiles. They're slippery little things.

If you want to see how the wall, the wash, and the deal all fit together in order, our full walkthrough on how to play lays out the whole opening step by step.

Quick reference: the American Mahjong tile count

The short version

There are 152 tiles, you'll hold 13 of them, and you don't need to memorize a single one of those numbers to have a great night.

The count is just the shape of the game, the frame around the picture. You'll pick it up by feel after a few hands, the same way you stopped counting the squares on a chessboard years ago. Nobody at the table is keeping track of how fast you learned the parts. They're too busy hoping you don't grab the tile they need.

You're not behind. You're just early. Come sit down.

When you're ready for the next piece, how the Charleston flows is a good place to go, or start right at the beginning with how to play.