Chinese casino style

Cross-comparison

conflicting — sources disagree materially, or one source contradicts itself

• [1] fewer than 20 special hands; no chows; discards briefly shown then placed face down in orderly rows; drawn hands result in a goulash. Reported by Ian Stanley on the ReachMahjong forum, June 2009
• [5] PROVENANCE: the entry did not exist in the 28 August 2008 capture of the catalogue, where the variant list ends at Fujian Style. It was added between that capture and the end of 2009, consistent with a report made in June 2009
• [6] PROVENANCE: the 28 December 2009 capture carries the entry word for word as the page serves it today. In seventeen years nothing was added, corrected or withdrawn, so the node rests on exactly what one person wrote once
• [7] THE REPORT CANNOT BE READ. reachmahjong.com now returns a DreamHost 'Site not found' placeholder, and the Internet Archive's captures of the forum's Other Rules board — where a non-Japanese ruleset would have been discussed — answer 'You do not have the required permissions to read topics within this forum'. The board's shell is archived and none of its posts are. No copy of the June 2009 post was found anywhere else
• [2] THE ONLY PUBLISHED RULES FOR MAHJONG AS A CASINO GAME. Article 3: the wall is four double rows of 17 stacks, and sixteen games make a session, the banker holding the bank while he keeps winning. Article 5: a chow may be claimed only by the player to the discarder's right, and a pung or kong from any other player beats it; in the simplified form neither chow nor pung may be claimed at all and a discard can only be taken to win. Article 6 lists the fan, all triplets (toi-toi) among the 1-fan hands and thirteen orphans, full flush and the big three dragons at doubled fan. Article 8 sets the commission by stake band, from $10 on a $25/$50 stake to $4,000 on a $10,000/$20,000 one. Article 10 makes a player who feeds a big hand carry the other two losers' payments as well as his own
• [3] the 1989 regulation, superseded in 1991. One form only: the simplified 112-tile game does not appear in it. Its article 7 was amended within the year by Portaria 161/89/M
• [8] THE CHAIN, from the official register: Portaria 133/88/M of 22 August 1988 approved the provisional mahjong regulation; 52/89/M replaced it with the definitive one; 135/91/M replaced that in turn. The register carries no text link for the 1988 provisional regulation, so it is on record without being readable. Alongside them run the portarias for a different game, Mahjong — Pai Kao: 100/89/M provisional, 65/90/M definitive, 125/91/M amending
• [9] the regulator's current list of casino games names Mahjong against Portaria 135/91/M, Mahjong Baccarat against 15/96/M and Mahjong Paikao against 100/89/M. The 1991 rules are live regulation, not a historical curiosity
• [10] DISAMBIGUATION: Mah Jong Pai Gow, in older Macau casinos, is played with 20 dot tiles two at a time against a rotating player-banker, the dealer taking 5 per cent of winning wagers. It is a pai gow game dealt from mahjong tiles, not mahjong, and its rules were obtained in Portuguese — that is, from the portarias above
• [4] a British casino group's published account of the mahjong it spreads at three of its venues. Pong, kong AND chow are all named as melds, and the page states plainly that house rules vary by venue
• [11] mahjong is run at fourteen named British casinos, and the group says the rules each four play by may differ. Casino mahjong is a live commercial offering with no single ruleset behind the name

Reading it

The label promises a casino ruleset; the sourcing gives one unreadable forum post and a body of published casino rules that contradicts it. Sloperama's entry has not changed a word since it appeared between August 2008 and December 2009, and the forum it came from is dead: the domain serves a hosting placeholder and the Internet Archive's captures of the relevant board return a permissions wall, so the report cannot now be read by anyone, including its author. Against that stands the only jurisdiction that publishes rules for mahjong played in casinos. Macau has regulated it since Portaria 133/88/M of 1988, and the rules in force — Portaria 135/91/M, still named by the regulator today — describe a different game from this node on every defining point: 136 tiles rather than 144, no flowers rather than flowers melded on receipt, chows explicitly allowed (only the player to the discarder's right may claim one), and the winner alone paid rather than all players scoring, with the House taking a commission by stake band instead. The British casinos that run mahjong publish the same shape: 144 tiles, chows, and house rules that vary table by table. What the Macau law does settle is a neighbouring node: its simplified form is Macau simplificado, tile for tile as catalogued. The honest reading is that 'Chinese casino style' names one table someone saw, not a style; nothing found in the published record of casino mahjong corroborates the no-chow, everyone-scores game it describes.

Sources

1. Sloper, Tom. "FAQ 2b: Identifying a Mah-Jongg Variant." Sloperama. canonical checked 2026-09-19

   Tile counts, hand sizes, flower handling and scoring for roughly 50 named variants. Primary source for most leaf nodes in this chart.

   https://www.sloperama.com/mjfaq/mjfaq02b.html

   Also cited on: Chinese archaic, Chinese pre-classical, Chinese classical, Shanghai / Hong Kong new style, Hong Kong old style, Modern HKOS and 43 more · bibliography #1

2. Macau. Portaria n.º 135/91/M, "Regulamento Oficial do Jogo de Mah-Jong." Boletim Oficial de Macau, I Série, n.º 31, 5 August 1991, p. 3435. cross-check checked 2026-09-19

   The official rules of mahjong as a casino game in Macau, still the ruleset in force. Governs two forms: conventional mahjong on 136 tiles with a 13-tile hand, and simplified mahjong on 112 tiles with a 4-tile hand. Carries the wall build, the claiming rules, the fan list, the banker's double payment, the discarder-liability rules and the table of house commission by stake. Revoked Portaria n.º 52/89/M.

   https://bo.dsaj.gov.mo/bo/i/91/31/port135.asp

   Also cited on: Macau simplificado · bibliography #80

3. Macau. Portaria n.º 52/89/M, "Regulamento Oficial do Jogo de Mah-Jong." Boletim Oficial de Macau, I Série, n.º 12, 20 March 1989, p. 1326. cross-check checked 2026-09-19

   The 1989 official casino rules, superseded in 1991. One form only: 136 tiles, 13-tile hand, chows and pungs from discards, fan scoring, banker pays and receives double, house commission by stake band. Revoked the provisional Portaria n.º 133/88/M; its article 7 was amended by Portaria n.º 161/89/M.

   https://bo.dsaj.gov.mo/bo/i/89/12/port52.asp

   Only cited here · bibliography #81

4. Napoleons Casinos & Restaurants. "How to Play Mahjong." cross-check checked 2026-09-19

   A British casino group's published description of the mahjong it spreads at its Sheffield, Manchester and Hull venues: 144 tiles, 13 in hand and 14 for the dealer, pongs, kongs and chows, scoring "depending on the variation played", and an explicit statement that house rules vary by venue.

   https://napoleons-casinos.co.uk/your-first-visit/how-to-play/mahjong/

   Only cited here · bibliography #85

5. Internet Archive. Capture of Sloperama FAQ 2b, 28 August 2008. cross-check checked 2026-09-19

   The last capture of the variant catalogue before the Chinese casino style entry existed. The list ends at Fujian Style and runs straight on to the comparative-analysis link.

   https://web.archive.org/web/20080828055632/http://www.sloperama.com/mjfaq/mjfaq02b.html

   Only cited here · bibliography #87

6. Internet Archive. Capture of Sloperama FAQ 2b, 28 December 2009. cross-check checked 2026-09-19

   The first capture carrying the Chinese casino style entry, six months after the forum report it rests on. Its wording is identical to the wording served today.

   https://web.archive.org/web/20091228091957/http://www.sloperama.com/mjfaq/mjfaq02b.html

   Only cited here · bibliography #88

7. Internet Archive. Capture of the ReachMahjong forum, "Other Rules" board, 26 June 2010. cross-check checked 2026-09-19

   The board where non-Japanese rulesets were discussed on the forum that carried the Chinese casino style report. The archived page answers "You do not have the required permissions to read topics within this forum", so the archive holds the board's shell and none of its posts. reachmahjong.com itself now serves a hosting placeholder.

   https://web.archive.org/web/20100626102811/http://www.reachmahjong.com:80/en/forum/viewforum.php?f=3

   Only cited here · bibliography #89

8. Direcção dos Serviços de Assuntos de Justiça (Macao SAR). Register of Portarias, Boletim Oficial. cross-check checked 2026-09-19

   The official legislative register. It lists Portaria n.º 133/88/M of 22 August 1988, "Aprova o regulamento provisório de jogo de Mah-Jong", the first regulation of casino mahjong, with no link to its text, and the chain that followed it: 52/89/M, 161/89/M, 100/89/M and 65/90/M (Mahjong — Pai Kao), 125/91/M and 135/91/M.

   https://www.bo.dsaj.gov.mo/pt/legis/list/a/?d=54

   Only cited here · bibliography #82

9. Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ), Macao SAR. "Gaming Rules." cross-check checked 2026-09-19

   The regulator's current list of casino games and the regulation governing each. It names Mahjong (Portaria 135/91/M), Mahjong Baccarat (15/96/M) and Mahjong Paikao (100/89/M), which establishes that the 1991 mahjong rules are live regulation rather than history.

   https://www.dicj.gov.mo/web/en/rules/index.html

   Also cited on: Macau simplificado · bibliography #83

10. Shackleford, Michael. "Mah Jong Pai Gow." Wizard of Odds. cross-check checked 2026-09-19

    A banked table game found in older Macau casinos, played with 20 mahjong dot tiles two at a time against a rotating player-banker, the dealer taking 5 per cent of winning wagers. Not mahjong; a different game built from mahjong tiles. Its rules were obtained in Portuguese and translated, which matches the Macau portarias for "Mahjong — Pai Kao".

    https://wizardofodds.com/games/mah-jong-pai-gow/

    Only cited here · bibliography #84

11. Genting Casinos UK. "Play Mahjong at Genting Casinos." cross-check checked 2026-09-19

    Lists the fourteen British casinos where the group runs mahjong games, and states that the rules each table of four plays by may differ. Establishes that casino mahjong is a live commercial offering outside Asia, with no single ruleset behind the name.

    https://www.gentingcasinos.co.uk/casino-gaming/mahjong/

    Only cited here · bibliography #86