A mahjong school is a licensed venue in

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

where people over the age of 18 can play

mahjong Mahjong (English pronunciation: ; also transliterated as mah jongg, mah-jongg, and mahjongg) is a tile-based game that was developed in the 19th century in China and has spread throughout the world since the early 20th century. It is played ...

. Since 1871, privately run

gambling Gambling (also known as betting or gaming) is the wagering of something of Value (economics), value ("the stakes") on a Event (probability theory), random event with the intent of winning something else of value, where instances of strategy (ga ...

businesses have been banned in Hong Kong; however, mahjong-hosting venues have been tolerated by the Hong Kong government. After

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, the government has required such venues to obtain ''

Mahjong Mahjong (English pronunciation: ; also transliterated as mah jongg, mah-jongg, and mahjongg) is a tile-based game that was developed in the 19th century in China and has spread throughout the world since the early 20th century. It is played ...

/ Tin Kau Licences'' with the constraint that such businesses must be known, in

Legal English Legal English, also known as legalese, is a register of English used in legal writing. It differs from day-to-day spoken English in a variety of ways including the use of specialized vocabulary, syntactic constructions, and set phrases such as ...

, as ''Mahjong Schools''—a white lie to get around the ban on privately run gambling businesses. Although technically "

school A school is the educational institution (and, in the case of in-person learning, the Educational architecture, building) designed to provide learning environments for the teaching of students, usually under the direction of teachers. Most co ...

s", these Mahjong/Tin Kau Licences are issued by the Television and Entertainment Licensing Authority. As of 2009, there were licensed mahjong schools in Hong Kong, mostly in densely populated areas, such as

Mong Kok Mong Kok (Chinese language, Chinese: 旺角), also spelled Mongkok, often abbreviated as MK, is an area in Kowloon, Hong Kong. The Prince Edward, Hong Kong, Prince Edward subarea occupies the northern part of Mong Kok. As one of the major sho ...

Yau Ma Tei Yau Ma Tei is an area in the Yau Tsim Mong District in the south of the Kowloon Peninsula in Hong Kong. Name ''Yau Ma Tei'' is a phonetic transliteration of the name (originally written as ) in Cantonese. It can also be spelt as Yaumatei, Y ...

Wan Chai Wan Chai (Traditional Chinese characters, Chinese: 灣仔) is located in the western part of Wan Chai District on the northern shore of Hong Kong Island, Hong Kong. It is bounded by Canal Road, Hong Kong, Canal Road to the east, Arsenal St ...

and

Sham Shui Po Sham Shui Po () is an area of Kowloon, Hong Kong, situated in the northwestern part of the Kowloon Peninsula, north of Tai Kok Tsui, east of Cheung Sha Wan and south of Shek Kip Mei (). It is located in and is the namesake of the Sham Shui ...

Rules

If a player plays mahjong in a mahjong school, he has to pay a portion of his gain if he wins a game. This is the main source of income of a mahjong school. To attract players, mahjong schools provide free drinks, free food, and sometimes lucky money. In addition to resident

umpire An umpire is an official in a variety of sports and competition, responsible for enforcing the rules of the sport, including sportsmanship decisions such as ejection. The term derives from the Old French , , and , : (as evidenced in cricke ...

s, modern mahjong schools also have

closed-circuit television Closed-circuit television (CCTV), also known as video surveillance, is the use of closed-circuit television cameras to transmit a signal to a specific place on a limited set of monitors. It differs from broadcast television in that the signa ...

installed to deter cheating and theft. There are only 0 fan hand and 1 fan hand. Higher score hands are counted as 1 fan. Hence the pace of a game is quite fast as the players do not spend time on getting high scores.

References

Mahjong Culture of Hong Kong Gambling in Hong Kong {{HongKong-stub

Rules

See also

References