Buying a Set: What It Costs, and the One Expensive Mistake

Start here: you probably do not need to buy a set. Almost everyone learns on somebody else's, because a game night has one already and nobody brings a second. The thing you cannot borrow is the card, which is $14.

If you do want your own, a new set runs from about $80 to $225 depending on where you buy and what it is made of. There is one mistake that makes a beautiful set unusable, and it catches people constantly.

The mistake

Sets for the Asian games and sets for the American game look alike in a photograph. They are not interchangeable, and the incompatibility runs one way only.

An American set has more than the Asian game needs, so it plays both. A 144-tile set has too few tiles for the American game and no jokers, so it can never play it. Tom Sloper's advice is blunt and correct: if there is any chance you will play the American game, buy an American set.

The second half of the trap is the marking. Many Asian sets carry no Roman letters and no Arabic numerals at all. A beginner cannot read the winds or the craks on one, which turns learning into translation.

What has to be in the box

A modern American set has 152 tiles, of which eight are jokers. The suit tiles, flowers, winds and jokers carry Western letters and numbers. The red and green dragons show dragons, and the white dragon carries a rectangular design rather than being blank.

It should also come with four or five racks, two or more dice, and a wind indicator. Many sets include spare flowers, jokers or blanks, and a set of chips.

What it costs

Two different markets, so two different sets of numbers.

From vendors. Sloper puts a new American-style set at roughly $80 to $120, more for better materials, and vintage American sets on the secondhand market at around $90 to $200. He has watched that market for three decades. Those are his observations rather than published prices, and they drift.

From the League. These are published, and were read from its store on 21 August 2026:

The League is not the cheapest route and does not claim to be. Its proceeds go to charity, which some buyers care about and others do not. Both positions are reasonable.

Buying secondhand

A lot of sets change hands on eBay, and it is where the good vintage ones are. Sloper's checklist for a listing is worth copying:

• Count the tiles. 152 for the American game. A photograph laid out in rows makes this checkable — count a row, count the rows, multiply.
• Look for Western markings. If everything is in Chinese, you cannot read the winds or the craks.
• Count the jokers. Older American sets often have too few for the modern game. Joker stickers exist as a fix.
• Check the bits. Racks, dice and a wind indicator should be there.

If somebody at the table cannot read the tiles

Large-number sets are made for players with poor eyesight, and readers who use them tell Sloper they solve the problem outright. Braille tiles and approaches for colour-blind players exist too.

Before you ring a vendor, know which game the player plays. A 152-tile American set with racks and a 144-tile Asian set are different products, and the answer changes what you are asking for.