Scrabble is a word game in which two to four players score points by placing tiles, each bearing a single letter, onto a game board divided into a 15×15 grid of squares. The tiles must form words that, in crossword fashion, read left to right in rows or downward in columns and are included in a standard dictionary or lexicon.
American architect Alfred Mosher Butts invented the game in 1931. Scrabble is produced in the United States and Canada by Hasbro, under the brands of both of its subsidiaries, Milton Bradley and Parker Brothers. Mattel owns the rights to manufacture Scrabble outside the U.S. and Canada. As of 2008, the game is sold in 121 countries and is available in more than 30 languages; approximately 150 million sets have been sold worldwide, and roughly one-third of American homes and half of British homes have a Scrabble set. There are approximately 4,000 Scrabble clubs around the world.
Equipment
Scrabble is played on a 15x15 board, containing 225 squares. Certain squares are premium squares: eight red triple word score (TWS) squares, 17 pink double word score (DWS) squares, including the center square (h8, often marked with a star or other symbol), 12 blue triple letter score (TLS) squares, and 24 light blue double letter score (DLS) squares. In 2008, Hasbro changed the colors of the premium squares to orange, red, green, and blue for TWS, DWS, TLS, and DLS respectively, but the original premium square color scheme is still preferred for Scrabble boards used in tournaments. Boards with a raised grid and the ability to rotate are standard in tournaments.
An English-language set contains 100 tiles, 98 of which are marked with a letter and a point value between 1 and 10. Each tile's point value is based on its frequency in English, with vowels and common letters such as L, N, R, S, and T worth 1 point, and rare letters such as Q and Z worth 10 points. The remaining two tiles are blank and carry no value. Other language sets use different letter set distributions with different point values. Tiles are usually made of wood or plastic and are square and thick, slightly smaller than the squares on the board. Each player uses a rack that conceals their tiles from other players.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O 1 3×WS 2×LS 3×WS 2×LS 3×WS 1 2 2×WS 3×LS 3×LS 2×WS 2 3 2×WS 2×LS 2×LS 2×WS 3 4 2×LS 2×WS 2×LS 2×WS 2×LS 4 5 2×WS 2×WS 5 6 3×LS 3×LS 3×LS 3×LS 6 7 2×LS 2×LS 2×LS 2×LS 7 8 3×WS 2×LS 2×LS 3×WS 8 9 2×LS 2×LS 2×LS 2×LS 9 10 3×LS 3×LS 3×LS 3×LS 10 11 2×WS 2×WS 11 12 2×LS 2×WS 2×LS 2×WS 2×LS 12 13 2×WS 2×LS 2×LS 2×WS 13 14 2×WS 3×LS 3×LS 2×WS 14 15 3×WS 2×LS 3×WS 2×LS 3×WS 15 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O The official Scrabble board design
History
In 1931 in Poughkeepsie, New York, the American architect Alfred Mosher Butts created the game as a variation on an earlier word game he invented, called Lexiko. The two games had the same set of letter tiles, whose distributions and point values Butts worked out by performing a frequency analysis of letters from various sources, including The New York Times. The new game, which he called Criss-Crosswords, added the 15×15 gameboard and the crossword-style gameplay. He manufactured a few sets himself but was not successful in selling the game to any major game manufacturers of the day.
In 1948, James Brunot, a resident of Newtown, Connecticut, and one of the few owners of the original Criss-Crosswords game, bought the rights to manufacture the game in exchange for granting Butts a royalty on every unit sold. Although he left most of the game (including the distribution of letters) unchanged, Brunot slightly rearranged the "premium" squares of the board and simplified the rules; he also renamed the game Scrabble, a real word that means "scratch frantically". In 1949, Brunot and his family made sets in a converted former schoolhouse in Dodgingtown, Connecticut, a section of Newtown. They made 2,400 sets that year but lost money.
In 1952, unable to meet demand himself, Brunot licensed the manufacturing rights to Long Island-based Selchow and Righter, one of the manufacturers that, like Parker Brothers and Milton Bradley Company, had previously rejected the game. "It's a nice little game. It will sell well in bookstores," Selchow and Righter president Harriet T. Righter remembered saying about Scrabble when she first saw it. In its second year as a Selchow and Righter product, 1954, nearly four million sets were sold. Selchow and Righter then bought the trademark to the game in 1972.
Selchow and Righter imported Scrabble tiles for the North American market from a factory in Germany until 1979, when they, and subsequent owners of the Scrabble brand, moved North American tile production to the United States for roughly two decades. From 1979 to 1998 Scrabble tiles for the North American market were produced in Fairfax, Vermont, and packaged for distribution and sale in East Longmeadow, Massachusetts. At its busiest, the 55,000-square-foot Fairfax factory produced over one million Scrabble tiles a day and employed more than 150 people.
Meanwhile, J. W. Spear & Sons acquired the rights to sell the game in Australia and the UK on January 19, 1955. In 1986, Selchow and Righter was sold to Coleco, which soon afterward went bankrupt. Hasbro then purchased Coleco's assets in 1989, including Scrabble and Parcheesi. Mattel then acquired JW Spear in 1994. Since then, Hasbro has owned the rights to manufacture Scrabble in the U.S. and Canada, and Mattel has held the rights to manufacture the game in other parts of the world.
In 1984, Scrabble was adapted into a daytime game show on NBC. The Scrabble game show ran from July 1984 to March 1990,. with a second run from January to June 1993. The show was hosted by Chuck Woolery. Its tagline in promotional broadcasts was, "Every man dies; not every man truly Scrabbles." In 2011, a new TV variation of Scrabble, called Scrabble Showdown, aired on The Hub cable channel, which is a joint venture of Discovery Communications, Inc. and Hasbro.
Scrabble was inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame in 2004.
Evolution of the rules The "box rules" included in each copy of the North American edition have been edited four times: in 1953, 1976, 1989, and 1999.
The major changes in 1953 were as follows. It was made clear that: words could be played through single letters already on the board, a player could play a word parallel and immediately adjacent to an existing word provided all crossing words formed were valid, the effect of two premium squares was to be compounded multiplicatively. The previously unspecified penalty for having one's play successfully challenged was stated: withdrawal of tiles and loss of turn.
The major changes in 1976 were as follows. It was made clear that the blank tile beats an A when drawing to see who goes first. A player could pass their turn, doing nothing. A loss-of-turn penalty was added for challenging an acceptable play. If final scores are tied, the player whose score was highest before adjusting for unplayed tiles is the winner; in tournament play, a tie is counted as half a win for both players.
The editorial changes made in 1989 did not affect gameplay.
The major changes in 1999 were as follows. It was made clear that: a tile can be shifted or replaced until the play has been scored, a challenge applies to all the words made in the given play. Playing all seven tiles is officially called a "bingo" in North America and a "bonus" elsewhere. A change in the wording of the rules could have been interpreted as meaning that a player may form more than one word on one row on a single turn.
Rules Before the game, a word list or dictionary is selected in order to adjudicate any challenges during the game. In club and tournament play, the word list is specified in advance, typically the NASPA Word List, the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary, or Collins Scrabble Words. All 100 tiles are placed into an opaque bag. To decide who goes first, each player selects 1 tile from the bag, and whoever selects the tile alphabetically closest to "A" goes first, with blanks superseding all letters. Each player then draws seven tiles and places them on their rack, hidden from other players.
Gameplay On every turn, the player at turn can perform one of the following options: Pass, forfeiting the turn and scoring zero. Exchange one or more tiles for an equal number from the bag, scoring zero. This can only be done if 7 or more tiles remain in the bag. Play at least one tile on the board, adding the value of all words formed to the player's cumulative score.
The first play of the game must consist of at least two tiles and cover the center square (H8). Any play thereafter must use at least one of the player's tiles to form a "main word" (containing all of the player's played tiles in a straight line) reading left-to-right or top-to-bottom. Diagonal plays are not allowed. At least one tile must be adjacent (horizontally or vertically) to a tile already on the board. If the play includes a blank tile, the player must designate the letter the blank represents; that letter remains unchanged for the rest of the game unless the play is challenged off. The player announces the score for that play, then draws replenishment tiles from the bag. If the game is played using a clock, the player starts the opponent's clock after announcing the score and before drawing tiles. Players may keep track of tiles played during the game.
If a player has made a play and not yet drawn a tile, any other player may choose to challenge any or all words formed by the play. The challenged word(s) are then searched in the agreed-upon word list or dictionary. If at least one challenged word is unacceptable, the play is removed from the board, and the player scores zero for that turn. If all challenged words are acceptable, the challenger loses their turn. In tournament play, players are not entitled to know which word(s) are invalid or the definitions of any challenged words. Penalties for unsuccessfully challenging an acceptable play vary in club and tournament play and are described in greater detail below.
End of game
The game ends when either: One player has played every tile on their rack ("playing out") and no tiles remain in the bag. At least six consecutive scoreless turns have occurred and either player decides to end the game. In tournament play, when either player exceeds 10 minutes of overtime.
At the end of the game, each player's score is reduced by the sum of the values of their unplayed tiles; if a player plays out, the sum of all other players' unplayed tiles is added to that player's score. This scoring adjustment differs slightly in most tournaments; a player who plays out adds twice this sum, and the opponent's score is unchanged.
Scoring + Premium square colors Square Original version Mattel version (2020-) Mattel version (2012–2020) Hasbro Version (2008–2014) Double letter (DLS) Light blue Light blue Triple letter (TLS) Double word (DWS) Pink Yellow Yellow Triple word (TWS)
Every letter is assigned a point value between 1 and 10, inclusive, with blanks worth zero points. The score of a play is calculated using the following rules: The score of a play equals the sum of the scores of all new words formed on that play. The score of every new word formed equals the sum of the point values of the letter(s) in that word. If a play covers any premium squares (such as DLS or TWS squares, including the center star H8), the point value of the corresponding letter or word is multiplied by 2 or 3 respectively. Premium squares only apply when newly placed tiles cover them. Any subsequent plays do not count these premium squares. A play that covers a DWS or TWS multiplies the value of the entire word(s) by 2 or 3, including tiles already on the board.