AMSTERDAM, the Netherlands - Mahjong is not purely for fun anymore; a bit of money could be involved.
That’s the results of the latest poll of Mahjong News. As always, one should be very careful with jumping to conclusions when reviewing the results of a poll on the internet. But  they may be useful to indicate a trend, though.

Prominent French mahjong player Laurent Mahé, when interviewed by Mahjong News about the announcement of a mahjong tournament during a luxurious cruise on the Yangtze river, said that it would be better to give away money prizes than to spend money on tourist events. And today Swedish player Hans Wikström said in Mahjong News that ‘he has trouble to motivate himself when playing a free game’.
89 visitors of the Mahjong News website voted on the poll. 48 of them (53.9 percent) were against playing for money: Mahjong is a minds sport. Money does not make it more thrilling’. Almost just as many (39, or 43.8 percent) agreed on the opposite: ‘Mahjong is not for kids. So money prizes are okay’.
A conclusion might be that the reluctance of playing for prize money is not as common as it used to be.
Might be.

Results of the poll