The Winning Hand - Privacy Policy

The Winning Hand is a game app published by American Mah Jongg Association, LLC ("we", "us"). This policy describes how the app handles personal information. It covers the app only. Our website is covered by the separate policy at www.americanmahjonggassociation.com/privacy.

WHO CAN USE THE APP
The Winning Hand is not directed to children. On iPhone and iPad you can play without an account and without giving us any information at all. You can also sign in with an American Mah Jongg Association membership, or take out a subscription inside the app, to reach the additional hand sets. On the web app and on Android, an American Mah Jongg Association membership is required.

IF YOU PLAY WITHOUT AN ACCOUNT
We collect and store nothing. There is no account, no email address and no profile, and your game stays on your device.

IF YOU SUBSCRIBE
Subscriptions are handled entirely by Apple. We never see or store your payment details, and we receive no personal information from Apple. The app asks Apple whether a subscription is currently active on this device; that answer is used on the device and is not sent to us or stored anywhere else. If you play as a subscriber without signing in, your game statistics are kept on this device only and are never sent to us. Manage or cancel a subscription in your Apple Account settings.

WHAT WE COLLECT AND STORE
When you sign in as a member and set up your profile, we store:

your email address -- the address on your American Mah Jongg Association membership, which is how you sign in -- and any other email addresses on your membership
your first name, last name and display name
an app account identifier
a record of whether your membership currently entitles you to use the app, and when that entitlement ends

To sign you in, we send a one-time code to that email address. We do not store a password, because the app does not use one.

YOUR GAMES AND STATISTICS
When you play signed in as a member, we also store a record of your play:

your totals: the games you have completed in each game and on each year's card, your play streak, and for each hand you complete in Hand Builder, Finish the Hand and Scrambled Hand, how many times you have completed it and your best time
a record of each game you complete: which game, the card year, how long it took, when you played it and your device's time zone, whether you played on iPhone or iPad, Android or the web, the app version, and what happened in the game -- for example the hand you built and the difficulty, or the result and points in a game against the bots
the days you open the app, which of those platforms you used on each, and when you last opened it

We use this to show you your own statistics, streaks and personal bests, and to understand how members use the app as a whole -- for example, how many games are played each month. A game you complete while offline is kept on your device until it can be sent.

MILESTONE RECOGNITION
When the games you complete on one year's card reach 100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 750 or 1,000, the app sends us a notice by email with your name, your email address and the milestone. We may recognize you by name for that milestone in our newsletter. If you would rather not be recognized, email hello@americanmahjonggassociation.com.

WHAT STAYS ON YOUR DEVICE
A game in progress -- its tiles, the match's scores and your settings -- is stored on your own device. If the app runs into a problem, the diagnostic report described below may include technical details of what the app was doing at the time.

WHAT WE DO NOT DO
We do not sell or rent your app information, and we do not share it with anyone for their advertising or marketing. The app contains no advertising and no advertising or marketing trackers, and we do not build a profile of you from your activity in other apps or on other websites. The only app information we publish is the milestone recognition described above.

WHO ELSE PROCESSES IT
The app runs on Google Firebase (authentication, database, hosting and functions), which stores this information on our behalf under Google's terms. Sign-in codes and milestone notices are delivered by our email provider.

To find and fix crashes and performance problems, the app sends diagnostic reports to two services: Sentry and Expo. These reports carry technical information -- what went wrong, where in the app it happened, when the app was opened and how long it took to start, the app version, and the device model and operating system version -- together with a random identifier for your installation of the app. That identifier is not your name or email address, it is not linked to your account, and it changes if you reinstall the app.

All of these companies process this information only on our instructions and only for the purposes described above. None of them uses it for their own purposes.

HOW LONG WE KEEP IT
We keep your profile, access record and game records for as long as your The Winning Hand account exists. When you delete your account, they are deleted immediately, and the copies in our database backups are removed within 14 weeks, as each backup expires. We keep backups only to recover from a fault. Routine server logs recording that a request took place are kept for up to 30 days; these logs contain no name or email address. Our email provider keeps a copy of each email it sends for up to 30 days. Milestone notices we have received are kept in our email records, and a newsletter already sent cannot be recalled. Crash and diagnostic reports are kept for up to 90 days by Sentry and for at least 60 days by Expo; they contain no name or email address.

DELETING YOUR ACCOUNT
You can delete your account inside the app: Home screen, then the account icon at the top right, then Account, then Delete Account. Deletion is immediate, and takes your game records with it. Full instructions, including what to do if you cannot sign in, are at www.americanmahjonggassociation.com/twh-delete-account.

Deleting your The Winning Hand account does not cancel or affect your American Mah Jongg Association membership, which is a separate real-world membership.

CHANGES TO THIS POLICY
We will post any changes to this page and update the date below.

CONTACT
hello@americanmahjonggassociation.com

Last updated: November 2026