Does a concealed hand pay double in American Mahjong?
No. There is no bonus for a concealed hand in the League's rules. The reward is already in the higher value printed beside the line on the card. A concealed win still earns the ordinary doubles: all three players pay double if you drew the winning tile yourself, and the value doubles for a hand with no Jokers on a line that allows them.
Answered by Prim. Last reviewed 2026-11-11.
The double you were promised is not in the rules
Plenty of tables pay a concealed hand double, and plenty of players are sure it is the rule. It is not. The League's payment schedule has exactly two bonuses in ordinary play: one for a win you draw yourself, and one for a hand finished without Jokers. Playing concealed is not on the list.
Nothing extra is owed for the difficulty. A concealed win is paid like any other win, starting from the value printed beside its line.
Where the reward actually lives
Every line on the card ends in a letter and a number. The letter is X for exposed or C for concealed, and the number is what the hand is worth. A concealed line is harder to make, because you may not call a single discard along the way except the one that gives you Mahjong. The card answers that by printing a higher value beside it. That higher number is the reward, all of it.
On the 2026 card, twelve lines are marked C, and six of them are the whole Singles and Pairs section. The card has already done the generous thing. It simply did it in print, before you sat down.
The doubles a concealed hand can still earn
A concealed hand is paid by the same schedule as every other hand. Win on someone's discard, which a concealed hand is allowed to do for its last tile, and the player who threw it pays double while the other two pay the printed value. Draw the winning tile yourself and all three pay double.
Say a concealed line is printed at 30. On a discard, that is 60 from the player who threw the tile and 30 from each of the others, 120 in all. Self picked, it is 60 from each player, 180 in all.
The jokerless bonus applies too, where the line allows Jokers in the first place. No Jokers in your final fourteen tiles doubles the value before the rest is worked out. The Singles and Pairs lines never allow a Joker, so their printed values already include it and they take no jokerless double.
If your table pays it anyway
Then your table has a house rule, and a perfectly friendly one. Tables are free to agree their own doubles, and some add one for a concealed hand. What matters is that everybody knows before the first deal, because the argument always arrives at the moment someone holds out a hand for more than the others expected to pay.
Settle it with one question before you play: do we pay by the card, or do we have extras of our own? At a tournament there is nothing to ask. The scoring sheet gives points for a self picked win and for a jokerless one, and nothing for playing concealed.
Work out who pays what
Settle Up shows you a finished hand and asks what each player owes. A few rounds and the doubles stop being a debate.
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