Quote Originally Posted by GwynUnlucky View Post
Players without tenpai have to pay out points to players with tenpai when the game ends in a draw, that's why. Houtei is a risk but that's their own decision to make. I'm not saying it should be changed if that goes against every other ruleset; but it's not hard to see the motivation behind wanting to do so
Dealing in via houtei usually costs more points than noten payout and carries the risk of giving the opponent's hand a considerable upgrade, for example a hand worth 5 han before houtei being upgraded to haneman by houtei, making you pay between 12-18k. Compare that to noten payouts being either 1k, 1.5k or 3k, and it removes any motivation to call pon/chi on the last tile. I'd definitely take noten over a houtei deal-in.