I've been hearing about Mahjong a lot since my childhood, but I wasn't able to learn anything about it before, except that it is a kind of gambling. Only recently did I learn a bit about it when I saw a streamer playing a Mahjong slot game.
Here in our country, it is illegal to use Mahjong as a form of gambling, however it is allowed to be played if just for leisure and/or played in house.
I have played it many times not on gambling platforms but on my system in my childhood days ans sometimes whenever I feel like breaking some tiles I play it but why it's ban in your country or gambling is prohibited there? I don't find anything unusual about it that particularly it would be blocked by any region but there could be any reasons for it.
It was basically allowed as a regular game to play, but illegal to turn into gambling one. Same with any card to be fair, like I can play poker with my friends at my house and nothing is wrong with that, we can even play for money as well and nobody would care about that, but when we start to consider turning into a casino that helps people play? Suddenly that becomes one of the biggest issues ever and it becomes something we can't do, it's illegal and government will put a stop to it.
Same logic here, sure you could play with your friends or yourself whatever, there is nothing wrong with that one, but as soon as you become the casino and play for money and make people play, that suddenly becomes an illegal thing to do.
Though I don't know a thing about mahjong game, Infact, don't be surprised if I say that right now is actually the first ever time I am getting to know that there is a game that goes by that title..
But then, I can very much relate to the discussion, over here in my country, there are still some card games that we usually play for leisure, fun and all that, but if security operatives, like the police found you betting on those games with friends, you all will be immediately arrested..
Personally though, I can't find a good or eligible reason for this, other than them just looking for who to extort money from.