Scrabble
 Former Scrabble brand logo, used worldwide by Mattel outside U.S. and Canada until 2013  Scrabble logo used by Hasbro within U.S. and Canada until 2014 |
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| Manufacturer(s) |
Mattel (outside U.S. and Canada) Hasbro (within U.S. and Canada) |
|---|---|
| Designer(s) | Alfred Mosher Butts |
| Publisher(s) | James Brunot |
| Publication date | 1938 |
| Genre(s) |
Word game Board game |
| Players | 2–4 |
| Age range | 8+ |
| Setup time | 2–6 minutes |
| Playing time | NASPA tournament game: ~50 minutes |
| Random chance | Medium (letters drawn) |
| Skill(s) required | Vocabulary, spelling, Anagramming, strategy, counting, bluffing, probability |
Scrabble is a word game in which two to four players score points by placing tiles, each bearing a single letter, onto a gameboard which is divided into a 15×15 grid of squares. The tiles must form words which, in crossword fashion, flow left to right in rows or downwards in columns. The words must be defined in a standard dictionary, or present in specified reference works (e.g., the Official Tournament and Club Word List, the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary), which provide a list of officially permissible words.
The name Scrabble is a trademark of Hasbro, Inc. in the United States and Canada and has been sold by Hasbro's Parker Brothers division since 1999. Prior to 1999, it was sold as a Milton Bradley game. Outside the United States and Canada, Scrabble is a trademark of Mattel. The game is sold in 121 countries and is available in 29 languages; approximately 150 million sets have been sold worldwide and roughly one-third of American and half of British homes have a Scrabble set. There are around 4,000 Scrabble clubs around the world.
The game is played by two to four players on a square board with a 15×15 grid of cells (individually known as "squares"), each of which accommodates a single letter tile. In official club and tournament games, play is between two players or, occasionally, between two teams each of which collaborates on a single rack.
The board is marked with "premium" squares, which multiply the number of points awarded: eight dark red "triple-word" squares, 17 pink "double-word" squares, of which one, the center square (H8), is marked with a star or other symbol; 12 dark blue "triple-letter" squares, and 24 light blue "double-letter" squares. In 2008, Hasbro changed the colors of the premium squares to orange for TW, red for DW, blue for DL, and green for TL. Despite this, the original premium square color scheme is still the preferred scheme for Scrabble boards used in tournaments.
In an English-language set, the game contains 100 tiles, 98 of which are marked with a letter and a point value ranging from 1 to 10. The number of points of each lettered tile is based on the letter's frequency in standard English writing; commonly used letters such as vowels are worth one point, while less common letters score higher, with Q and Z each worth 10 points. The game also has two blank tiles that are unmarked and carry no point value. The blank tiles can be used as substitutes for any letter; once laid on the board, however, the choice is fixed. Other language sets use different letter set distributions with different point values.
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