How to Read the NMJL Card: A Buyer's Guide

If you are buying American Mahjong equipment, you will keep running into references to “the card”. It is worth understanding properly, because it explains why the tile count is what it is — and why a set you buy today will still be correct in ten years.

What the NMJL card actually is

The NMJL card is issued by the National Mah Jongg League, the organisation that standardised American Mahjong. It is a printed card listing the hands that win that year.

In plain terms: think of it as the season’s rulebook. Chinese Mahjong has fixed winning patterns that never change. American Mahjong does not — it publishes a new set of winning combinations every year, and everyone at the table plays from the same card.

The card is why American Mahjong feels different from the Chinese game. You are not just building a strong hand; you are building one of a specific, published list of hands, and everyone is working from the same list.

What the card decides, and what it does not

This is the part buyers most often get wrong:

The card decides	The card does not decide
Which combinations win this year	How many tiles are in a set
How the hands are scored	What size the tiles are
Which tiles a hand depends on	What the tiles are made of

The tile configuration is fixed and has been for decades: 166 tiles, including 8 Jokers, plus the flowers and winds. A new card never changes that. It cannot — every player in the country is using sets they already own.

How to read the card

You do not need to memorise it to buy equipment. But knowing its structure helps you understand what a set has to contain:

1. The card is divided by category. Hands are grouped by the suit or concept they are built on — runs in a suit, hands built on winds, hands built on dragons, and so on.
2. Each entry lists the exact tiles needed. That is the operative part. If a hand calls for a specific flower or a specific wind, that tile has to exist in the set, correctly marked.
3. Jokers substitute in most hands. This is why the Joker count matters so much. Jokers are wild in most hands, so a set short on Jokers loses flexibility immediately.
4. Some hands exclude Jokers. A few hands cannot use them at all, which is another reason the other 158 tiles have to be complete and correct.

Why this matters when you are buying

Three practical consequences:

You are not buying something that expires. This is the most useful thing to know if you are holding stock. A set bought this year is not obsolete next year, because only the card changes. Stock does not go stale.

The Joker count is the number to verify. Eight is correct. Count them on delivery before anything else. Jokers are the tiles that go missing most often in transit and in storage, and a set with seven is a set that cannot play the card fully.

Spare blanks are a genuine quality signal. A supplier who includes blank tiles for replacement is thinking about the set’s whole life, not just the sale. It costs them a little and saves the buyer a lot.

The one thing to check on a delivery

If you take one habit from this article, take this one: count the Jokers first, then check for spare blanks.

Everything else — engraving quality, rack fit, colour consistency — you will notice over the first few weeks of play. A short Joker count you need to catch before the set reaches a customer, because it is the one defect that makes the set unplayable rather than merely imperfect.

Sizing, briefly

The card does not care what size your tiles are. Standard American tiles are around 30 × 23 × 13 mm, and larger sets run to 32 or 33 mm. If you are stocking for senior communities, the larger face is easier to read across a table and is usually the better call. The game is identical either way.