Mahjong Ways is the game that started PG Soft's mahjong series. The studio announced it in December 2019 as its first mahjong-themed slot, and four months later it was popular enough to get a sequel. The board is a grid of mahjong tiles with 1,024 ways, winning tiles explode and new ones fall in, a multiplier climbs from x1 to x5 with every win in a row, and some tiles arrive plated in gold and turn into wilds. I played the demo below at 24.00 a spin, and both of my wins are broken down tile by tile further down.
United States
Mahjong Ways available at Cafe Casino
Same game, real money
Cafe Casino runs the same Mahjong Ways with the same math and adds a welcome bonus for players from the United States:
300% up to $2,000 + 150 FS 18+ · T&Cs apply · the demo stays freeA gold tile in a winning spin
My stake was 0.30 x 4 x 20 = 24.00, so every paytable point was worth 0.30 x 4 = 1.20. The spin below paid 26.40, which is 22 points, from two winning symbols at once.
The eight of characters, the tile with 八萬, landed once on reel one, once on reel two as a gold tile and twice on reel three: 1 x 1 x 2 = 2 ways at 6 points each, 12 points. The red dragon, 中, lined up across the third row of the first three reels: one way at 10 points. 12 + 10 = 22 points, and 22 x 1.20 = 26.40, paid at x1 because it was the first round of the spin.
The gold eight on reel two is the interesting part. It was involved in a win, so by the rules it does not just explode: after the cascade it comes back as a wild for the next round.
Gold plated tiles turn into wilds
On any spin, some tiles on reels two, three and four can land plated in gold. Wilds and scatters are never gold. If a gold tile is part of a win, then at the start of the next round, once the new tiles have dropped, it turns into a wild.
The wild substitutes for every symbol except the scatter, and because it sits on the middle reels, it links reel one to reels four and five for several symbols at once. That is how a cascade keeps going: a gold tile wins, becomes a wild, the wild helps the next win, and each new round is paid at a higher multiplier.
1,024 ways on a 5x4 board
The board is five reels of four tiles, and the number of ways is fixed at 4 x 4 x 4 x 4 x 4 = 1,024. Wins pay from the leftmost reel on adjacent reels, and the number of matching tiles on each reel is multiplied together.
The opening screen shows most of the cast: two wilds on reel three, a gold red dragon on reel two, a gold white dragon on reel four and two red scatter tiles marked 胡, one short of free spins. The rules give their own example, a symbol on one, three and two tiles of the first three reels:
That is 1 x 3 x 2 = 6 ways, and at 10 for three of a kind it pays 60. My smaller win worked the same way: a low tile that pays 2 for three of a kind landed once on reels one and two and twice on reel three, 1 x 1 x 2 = 2 ways, 4 points, or 4.80.
Two gold tiles are visible on reel two in that spin, and the one taking part in the win will turn wild in the next round. Small wins like these are what feed the multiplier ladder.
The multiplier ladder: x1, x2, x3, x5
The bar above the reels shows the multiplier for the current round. Every spin starts at x1. A win in the first round lifts the second round to x2, a win in the second lifts the third to x3, and a win in the third sets the fourth round and every round after it to x5.
Four rounds that each pay the same amount W are worth W + 2W + 3W + 5W = 11W. It is the same ladder as in Captain's Bounty, which PG Soft released a few months earlier, but here the gold tiles feed it with fresh wilds round after round.
Free spins: 12 spins and a ladder up to x10
Three scatters anywhere award 12 free spins, and each scatter beyond three adds two more. The free spins are played at the stake that triggered them and can be retriggered.
During the feature the ladder becomes x2, x4, x6 and x10. Every win is at least doubled, and the four-round chain that pays 11W in the base game pays 2W + 4W + 6W + 10W = 22W here. The ladder goes back to its first step on every new free spin, so the feature rewards long cascades rather than long rounds. PG Soft reused this exact x2 to x10 ladder in 2026 as the 15-spin option of Mighty Mania.
Paytable per way
Paytable values are multiplied by bet size and level, and a spin costs 20 times that product. Dividing by 20 shows what one way is worth against the whole stake.
The green dragon, 發, tops the table, and five of them on a single way are 5x the stake. The wild and the scatter have no pays of their own; the wild works through substitution and the scatter through free spins:
| Tile | 3 / 4 / 5 of a kind | 5 of a kind vs stake, per way |
|---|---|---|
| Green dragon (發) | 15 / 60 / 100 | 5x |
| Red dragon (中) | 10 / 40 / 80 | 4x |
| White dragon | 8 / 20 / 60 | 3x |
| Eight of characters (八萬) | 6 / 15 / 40 | 2x |
| Five of dots, nine of bamboo | 4 / 10 / 20 | 1x |
| Two of dots, two of bamboo | 2 / 5 / 10 | 0.5x |
Mahjong Ways by the numbers
PG Soft's game page lists a 96.92% RTP and a 25,000x maximum win. I found no public information sheet for the game, and the studio does not publish a volatility rating, so I leave it out. The sequel, Mahjong Ways 2, moved to a 4-5-5-5-4 board with 2,000 ways and kept the gold tiles and the ladder:
| Feature | Specification |
|---|---|
| Provider | PG Soft |
| Released | December 2019 |
| Reels / rows | 5 x 4 |
| Ways | 1,024 fixed, base bet 20 |
| Gold plated tiles | Reels 2 to 4; a winning gold tile becomes a wild |
| Multiplier | x1, x2, x3, x5 per round; x2, x4, x6, x10 in free spins |
| Free spins | 12 for 3 scatters, +2 per extra scatter, retrigger possible |
| RTP | 96.92% |
| Max win | 25,000x |
| Bet in the demo | 0.60 to 180 per spin |
Bet: 0.60 to 180 in the demo
The demo opens at 12.00. The Bet Options panel multiplies a bet size, a bet level from 1 to 10 and the base bet of 20; my session ran at 0.30 x 4 x 20 = 24.00.
Bet sizes run from 0.03 to 0.90, so a spin costs from 0.60 (0.03 x 1 x 20) to 180.00 (0.90 x 10 x 20). Real-money limits depend on the casino and the currency, as with all PG Soft games with free demos on this site.
Mahjong Ways demo: FAQ
Is the Mahjong Ways demo free?
How do gold tiles work in Mahjong Ways?
How does the multiplier work?
How many free spins do you get in Mahjong Ways?
What is the difference between Mahjong Ways and Mahjong Ways 2?
What are the RTP and max win of Mahjong Ways?
Verdict
Mahjong Ways is built from a few simple parts that feed each other: gold tiles become wilds, wilds keep cascades going, and cascades climb the multiplier ladder. Single wins are small, as my 26.40 and 4.80 showed, so the game is really about how long one spin can keep going. The free spins double every step of the ladder. Play the demo for a while and watch the gold tiles; the spins where one of them wins are the ones worth waiting for.