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Macau official casino mahjong
Portaria 135/91/M, 136 tiles
Sources
The documents this entry rests on, as published. Each can be opened and checked; nothing in this part is anybody’s reading of them.
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. canonical checked 2026-09-19
https://bo.dsaj.gov.mo/bo/i/91/31/port135.asp
AI summary 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.
Also cited on: Macau simplificado, Chinese casino style · bibliography #80
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. supporting checked 2026-09-19
https://bo.dsaj.gov.mo/bo/i/89/12/port52.asp
AI summary The 1989 official casino rules, superseded in 1991.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.
Also cited on: Chinese casino style · bibliography #81
Direcção dos Serviços de Assuntos de Justiça (Macao SAR). Register of Portarias, Boletim Oficial. cross-check checked 2026-09-19
https://www.bo.dsaj.gov.mo/pt/legis/list/a/?d=54
AI summary 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.
Also cited on: Chinese casino style · bibliography #82
Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ), Macao SAR. "Gaming Rules." supporting checked 2026-09-19
https://www.dicj.gov.mo/web/en/rules/index.html
AI summary 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.
Also cited on: Macau simplificado, Chinese casino style · bibliography #83
Analysis
Written by an AI model from the sources above. It is a reading of them, not a source in its own right: every figure in it points back to a numbered source, and where the two disagree, the source is right.
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
Added by this compendium
The source chart does not carry this variant. It was added because the research turned up a ruleset the chart has no node for. Everything the chart does claim is unchanged.
Parent link: inferred — read off the rules by this compendium; no source states it
No source states where Macau's regulated casino game came from, and the regulation itself cites no ancestry. The parent is read off the rules: a 136-tile wall, fan scoring with no minimum, winner-only payment and a fan list running through all-triplets, all-sequences, full flush, thirteen orphans and the big three dragons is the Cantonese game as Hong Kong old style carries it. Treat the link as this compendium's reading, not as a sourced descent.
Cross-comparison
What each source was read to say, set side by side. The numbers are the sources above.
| Source | Tiles | Hand | Flowers | Scoring | Payout |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| [1] | 136 (three suits, four winds, three dragons, four of each; no flowers) | 13, out on 14 | none — the set the regulation lists has no flower or season tiles | fan: a minimum hand (kai vu), a list of 1-fan hands, and a top grade of doubled fan | winner only; the banker pays and receives double; the House takes a commission on every won game, by stake band |
| [2] | 136 | 13, out on 14 | none | fan, in the same structure the 1991 text keeps | winner only; banker double; House commission from a $50/$100 stake upward |
- [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
- [3] 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
- [4] 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
Reading it
The rules are as firmly established as anything in this compendium — they are law, published in the official gazette, reproduced across two instruments two years apart and still named by the regulator today. What is not established is everything around them. No source outside the Macau government describes this game being played, so there is no witness to whether tables follow the text or treat it as a floor; the one independent account of mahjong in Macau casinos, the Wizard of Odds page, documents Mah Jong Pai Gow, which is a pai gow game dealt from mahjong tiles and not this at all. The descent is this compendium's reading and nothing more: the regulation cites no ancestry, and the parent here is inferred from rule shape, a 136-tile wall with fan scoring, no minimum, winner-only payment and a Cantonese fan list. One structural point belongs on the record. This node is the conventional form, article (a) throughout the 1991 text; article (b) of the same regulation is the 112-tile game the chart files separately as Macau simplificado under Mainland regionals. They are two forms of one law, and a reader who finds one should be sent to the other.
In the tree
Descends from Hong Kong old style, as the analysis above places it; the chart has no node for it.