Lesson 4 of 5Next: Play a whole hand
On this page
There are eight jokers in an American mahjong set, and each one can stand in for any tile, as long as it's part of a group of three or more of the same tile.
Jokers are what make the American game feel different from Chinese mahjong, which has none. They also make hands come together much faster, which is why knowing exactly where they're allowed matters from your first game.
How many jokers are in American mahjong?
Eight, in a standard 152-tile American set. Many sets sold today come with a couple of spare jokers and some blank tiles. For a game played to the National Mah Jongg League rules, you play with eight and set the extras aside.
Where you can use a joker
A joker can replace any tile in a pung (three of the same tile), a kong (four), a quint (five) or a sextet (six). It doesn't matter which suit, wind or dragon the group is made of.
Concealed hands (marked C on the card) use jokers the same way.
Quints show why jokers matter: there are only four of each number, wind and dragon in the set, so five of a kind can't happen without at least one joker.
Where you can never use a joker
That means:
- Pairs stay natural. A natural tile is a real tile, not a joker. A pair of flowers, a pair of 2 Dots: both tiles must be the real thing.
- Single tiles stay natural. If a line shows a lone tile (every digit of the year, a single dragon, each wind in N E W S), that tile can't be a joker.
- Singles and Pairs hands use no jokers at all. That section of the card is built only from single tiles and pairs.
Swapping a joker out of an exposure
When a player exposes a group with a joker in it (lays it face up on their rack), anyone can take that joker on their own turn by giving the real tile in exchange. If someone has exposed 7 Crak, 7 Crak and a joker, and you hold a 7 Crak, you put your 7 Crak there and take the joker.
This is called redeeming a joker. You can do it on any rack at the table, your own included, so keep an eye on every exposure. Redeeming isn't an exposure, so you can do it even in a concealed hand. One thing you can't do: call a discard just to use it for a swap.
Discarding a joker
You can discard a joker, but once it's down it's dead: nobody can call it, not even for mahjong. That's why a joker is the safest discard late in a hand (and also why you'd rarely want to throw one).
Can a pung be all jokers?
Inside your hand, yes: three jokers can stand for three of the same tile. When you expose a group by calling a discard, the tile you called is a real tile, so an exposed group always has at least one natural tile in it.
Using jokers in the year line
Year hands (2026, for this card) are built from the digits of the year. The four tiles that spell 2026 are four different tiles, so each one must be natural: no joker goes in the year itself. Jokers can go only in the other groups of the line that are three or more of the same tile.
The same reading works for every line on the card: look at each group, count its tiles, and you know at once whether a joker can go there. The guide to reading the card walks through a full line.
Next
You now know the tiles, the card, the Charleston and the jokers. Put it all together in one whole hand, start to finish.
