Macau official casino mahjong

Assessment

Confidence

documented a published ruleset or rule description exists and is cited

Evidence

partial sources agree on some points but disagree or say nothing on others

Cross-comparison

What each source was read to say, set side by side. The numbers are the sources above.

• [1] the ruleset itself, article by article. Article 3: four double rows of 17 stacks, sixteen games to 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 any pung or kong beats it; a player who calls a pung and backs out forfeits the hand. Article 6: 1 fan for a dragon pung, the round or seat wind, robbing a kong, winning on a kong replacement, all triplets, all sequences, one suit with honours, the last tile, small three dragons, small four winds and all terminals-and-honours; doubled fan for the heavenly and earthly hands, double wind, consecutive kongs, pure all-sequence, full flush, thirteen orphans, all concealed triplets, big three dragons, big four winds, all terminals and all honours. Article 9: a discard cannot be taken back, and no player may win more than the capital he has in play. Article 10: a player who feeds a big hand carries the other two losers' payments as well as his own
• [2] the same game two years earlier, which is what makes the shape stable rather than a one-off drafting choice. The 1991 text reproduces it almost word for word and adds the simplified form beside it. Its article 7 was amended within the year by Portaria 161/89/M
• [5] the chain in the official register: Portaria 133/88/M of 22 August 1988 approved the provisional regulation, 52/89/M made it definitive, 135/91/M replaced that. The 1988 text is listed without a link, so the first version of these rules is on record without being readable
• [6] still in force: the gaming bureau's current list of casino games names Mahjong against Portaria 135/91/M. This is the operative ruleset in a Macau casino today, not a historical one
• [7] Read at the source. Article 3(3) lists the games of fortune authorised in casinos: '(十二) 麻雀；(十三) 麻雀百家樂；(十四) 麻雀牌九' (mahjong; mahjong baccarat; mahjong pai gow) among twenty-odd others
• [8] Read at the source. An annual DICJ series of gross revenue from mahjong, 2000-2017, in MOP millions: 118 in 2017, 122 in 2016, a high of 203 in 2012 and a low of 0 in 2004, with mahjong pai gow reported as a separate series
• [9] Read at the source. Lists 28 authorised games and stars those 'currently operated'; 麻雀 (mahjong) is listed without a star, while 麻雀牌九 (mahjong pai gow) has one. The list is undated and unsourced; it sits beside 2005 and 2008 statistics
• [10] Read at the source. Some 200 players at the World Series of Mahjong in the Venetian Macao's ballroom, 136 tiles a table; won by Zhao Jian of Jiangsu
• [1] Re-read on 2026-10-16; the server reset every other connection. The page header lists both texts this one revoked: 52/89/M, which had revoked 133/88/M, and 161/89/M, which had rewritten article 7 of 52/89/M. Article 8 (Comissão da Casa) for form (a) is the 161/89/M table, band for band. Tile names are given in Cantonese romanisation (hong chông, fát chói, pak pán; sók chi, mán chi, t'ông chi)
• [1] The gazette's Chinese text, reached through the Versão Chinesa link on the Portuguese page (the port135cn.asp pattern answers 404). It names the game 麻雀 and the two forms 傳統麻雀 (traditional, 136 tiles) and 簡易麻雀 (simplified, 112 tiles), and gives the rules the title 麻雀法定博彩規則
• [3] Read from the gazette's page images. The PDF has no text layer, so the quotes are transcribed by eye; the transcription and an OCR text are saved with the pass. The regulation was approved at the request of the Sociedade de Turismo e Diversões de Macau, the gaming concessionaire, whose contract already authorised the game, and signed on 8 August 1988. Article 2 orders a revision within six months of the game's start, and article 3 lets the DICJ director amend it by order. The rules already have the 4 double rows of 17 stacks, 16 games with a winning banker keeping the bank, a chow only by the player to the discarder's right, a fan list from dragon pungs to thirteen orphans, and ten discarder-liability rules. The HTML page named by the gazette's redirect (bo/i/88/34/port133.asp) answers 404. The quotes were checked by hand against the page images on 2026-10-16
• [4] Read from the gazette's page images. The PDF has no text layer, so the quotes are transcribed by eye; the transcription is saved with the pass. The Portaria is dated 4 September 1989 and was signed on 30 August 1989 by the Under-Secretary for Economic Affairs, again at the STDM's request. Its single article rewrites article 7 (Comissão da Casa) of Portaria 52/89/M, and a Chinese text follows on page 4938. The HTML page (bo/i/89/36/port161.asp) redirects to a 404. The quotes were checked by hand against the page images on 2026-10-16
• [11] The record gives the status as in force (Em vigor), filed under casino games of fortune. Its note says the Portaria revoked 52/89/M expressly and 161/89/M tacitly, and that under Law 16/2001 it now has the standing of an external regulatory order of the Secretary for Economy and Finance
• [12] The data behind the regulator's 2009 statistics page, which loads it by script. In table (3), gross revenue by game type in MOP millions, the Mahjong line has nothing in 2004, 2005, 2006 or 2007, then 9 in 2008 and 27 in 2009 (8, 7, 7 and 6 by quarter). Mahjong Paikao has a separate line (35 in 2004, down to 0.4 in 2009), and so does Makccarat (mahjong baccarat)
• [12] In table (3), mahjong earned 27, 34, 70, 203, 165 and 132 MOP million in 2009-2014; 2014 by quarter was 38, 36, 32 and 26. Table (4) counts gaming tables only in total, not by game
• [12] In table (3), mahjong earned 14 MOP million in 2020, all of it in the first quarter, and nothing in any year from 2021 to 2025. Mahjong Paikao no longer has a line here. On the same series' other pages, the 2019 page gives 137 for both 2018 and 2019, and the 2026 page (2021-2026) has no Mahjong line at all
• [6] The regulator's own copy of the rules, linked from its Gaming Rules list. It is the Chinese text of Portaria 135/91/M in full, with no amendment, preface or house variation. A Portuguese copy is at /web/pt/rules/Mahjong.html, and the English address serves the Chinese text
• [13] Chapter III, "Exploração de mah-jong": article 12 punishes anyone running mahjong for profit in a commercial establishment, a residence or other premises with up to a year in prison or a fine. Article 21 fines players found at such a game $500 to $10,000. The page records that Law 20/2024 revoked this law
• [14] The item's last paragraph, which draws on Success Universe Group's interim report for mid-2015, gives Ponte 16's casino 92 mass, nine high-limit and seven VIP tables plus 13 mahjong tables

Reading it

The rules are law, and now from the start. The gazette scans of Portaria 133/88/M (August 1988, provisional, issued at the concessionaire STDM's request) and 161/89/M (September 1989) have been read. The first already has the 136-tile set, four double rows of 17, sixteen games, the fan list from kai vu to doubled fan, winner-only payment with the banker at double, and a house commission table. The second only adds a $25/$50 band to that table, which 135/91/M keeps band for band. LegisMac lists 135/91/M as in force, with the standing of a regulatory order under Law 16/2001, and the DICJ publishes its Chinese text, unaltered, as the rule. The regulator's own revenue tables show the game was dealt, on a small scale: nothing in 2004-2007, MOP 9 million in 2008, a peak of 203 million in 2012, 137 million in 2018 and 2019, 14 million in the first quarter of 2020, and nothing since. Macau Business (2016) puts 13 mahjong tables in the SJM-licensed Ponte 16 casino, the only table count found. Every source on the rules is a Macau government text, so they rest on official sources alone, and no player or guide describes a table. Still wanted are Success Universe's filings for Ponte 16 and the DICJ's figures from before 2009. The descent remains inferred.

Looked for, not found

• Official rules In Macau the casino game's rules are made by government order, not by a governing body, so they are filed as law (133/88/M, 52/89/M, 135/91/M), and the DICJ's own copy is the same text. No operator's house rules, rules card or game guide for mahjong tables was found on the DICJ site or in searches on SJM and Ponte 16
• Tournament rules Does not apply: this is a house-commission casino game with no tournaments. Tournaments held in Macau casino hotels, such as the 2015 World Series of Mahjong at the Venetian, played other rules (afp-2015-wsom-macau)
• Rulebook No published book setting out the Macau casino rules was found. Internet Archive's metadata search for mahjong with Macau returned only pre-war Hong Kong newspapers, its full-text endpoint refused the request, and Google Books and WorldCat answered 429 (2026-10-16)
• Historical Apart from the gazette texts themselves, filed as law, nothing written while the game was dealt describes a table. Pre-war Hong Kong papers in the Internet Archive mention mahjong with Macau but predate the 1988 casino game; left unread
• Scholarship No academic study of the casino game was found. Scholarly indexes and CNKI were not searched (no literature is known), and the UNLV Gaming Law Journal lead from an earlier pass is still unread
• Guide No hobbyist guide to the casino game was found. Sloperama FAQ 2b covers only Macau Simplificado, and the Mahjong Wiki returned nothing on Macau
• Forum Reddit and BoardGameGeek refuse automated readers, and no forum report from a Macau casino mahjong table turned up in web searches. Sloperama credits a 2006 rec.games.mahjong post by Thierry Depaulis for the Macau rules; it is a lead for the next pass
• Collection No museum or library record bears on the casino game; casino tile sets were not looked for

Known, not yet read

Sources that look worth having but could not be read for this entry. If you can reach one, it can be read and added. Every variant’s list is gathered on Missing sources.

• Commercial Success Universe Group (HKEX 00487), annual and interim reports 2008-2019: the breakdown of gaming tables at the Ponte 16 casino — The operator's own count of mahjong tables at Ponte 16 (13 around 2015, by press accounts) and the years they were there. The DICJ publishes no count of tables by game
  Where: HKEXnews (www.hkexnews.hk), stock code 00487; the company's investor-relations site. Tried: Not reached on 2026-10-16. HKEXnews' title search is a script application, and GGRAsia's summary of the 2015 results (?p=30322, 31 March 2016) answered HTTP 403 from the site
• Organisation DICJ annual gaming statistics, gross revenue by game and number of tables: the pages before 2009 (mahjong figures for 2000-2003) and any count of tables by game — The pages for 2009-2026 have been read (dicj-gaming-statistics) and give revenue by game from 2004, but table counts only in total. The 2000-2003 mahjong figures that CEIC republishes, and any count of mahjong tables, are still unseen at the source
  Where: https://www.dicj.gov.mo/web/en/information/DadosEstat/ for the years before 2009; the DICJ's printed annual reports; Wayback captures of the old pages. Tried: On 2026-10-16 the report_en.xml files for 2002-2008 answered 404 at the current address (the site's own answer), and the Wayback CDX API reset the connection twice (on the proxy's or the site's side, not determined)

Where it was searched

Every place the search checklist names for this variant’s languages, and what each gave, including nothing. The last full pass was on 2026-10-16.

Names searched: Chinese 麻雀, 傳統麻雀, 传统麻雀, 麻雀法定博彩規則, 麻雀法定博彩规则, 「麻雀」博彩章程, 麻雀耍樂規則, ma jeuk; Portuguese Mah-Jong, Mah-Jong convencional, jogo de Mah-Jong, Regulamento Oficial do Jogo de Mah-Jong, Mahjong; English Macau official casino mahjong, Macau casino mahjong, Mahjong, Mah-Jong, conventional mahjong.