Early history
The origin of playing cards is obscure, but it is almost certain that they began in China after the invention of paper. Ancient Chinese “money cards” have four “suits”: coins (or cash), strings of coins (which may have been misinterpreted as sticks from crude drawings), myriads of strings, and tens of [...]

A playing card is a typically hand-sized piece of heavy paper or thin plastic used for playing card games. A complete set of cards is a pack or deck. Playing cards are often used as props in magic tricks, as well as occult practices such as cartomancy, and a number of card games [...]

A card game is any game using playing cards, either traditional or game-specific.
The deck or pack
A card game is played with a deck (common in the US), or pack (common in the UK), of cards intended for that game. The deck consists of a fixed number of pieces of printed cardboard known as [...]

View from a player going to discard a tile in an ongoing gameplay.
Players may read the name of the discarded tile out loud.
The flower tile on the left should be replaced by a tile from the dead wall promptly.
Each player is dealt either 13 tiles for 13-tile variations or 16 tiles [...]

Basic equipment: chips, tiles and dice.
Mahjong houses provide a convenient venue for Mahjong old hands. This is a typical scene of Mahjong house in Wan Chai, Hong Kong.
Mahjong, can be played either with a set of Mahjong tiles, or less commonly, a set of Mahjong playing cards (sometimes spelled ‘kards’ to [...]

In 1998 the China State Sports Commission, in the interest of changing mahjong from an illegal gambling game to an approved ‘healthy sport’, published a new set of rules, now generally referred to as Chinese Official rules or International Tournament rules. The principles of the new, ‘healthy’ mahjong are: no gambling – [...]

Beijing residents playing Mahjong in public.
Four Filipino women playing Filipino Mahjong.
There are many variations of mahjong. In many places, players observe one version, and are either often unaware of other variations, or claim that other variations are incorrect. Although many variations today differ only by scoring, there are several main [...]

Mahjong in China
Different kinds of Chinese playcards (from left to right): Bógŭ Yèzí (博古葉子), Caozhou Paí (曹州牌), Three Kingdoms Yèzí (三國葉子), Dongguan Paí (東莞牌).
One of the myths (probably originating in the West) regarding the origin of Mahjong suggests that Confucius, the great Chinese philosopher, had developed the game about 500 BC. [...]

Mahjong

Players
4

Age range
> Any

Setup time
2-5 minutes

Playing time
0-3 hours

Rules complexity
High

Strategy depth
Medium

Random chance
Yes

Skills required
Tactics, observation, memory

Mahjong (Traditional Chinese: 麻將; Simplified Chinese: 麻将; pinyin: Májiàng; Cantonese: Màhjeung; or Chinese: 麻雀; pinyin: Máquè; Cantonese: Màhjeuk; other common English spellings include mahjongg, majiang, and hyphenated forms such as mah-jong or mah-jongg) is a game for four [...]