Scrabble rules
Each player has seven tiles and takes turns placing a word on the 15×15 board, joined to the words already there. You score the letters' points plus any premium squares you cover. Use all seven tiles in one turn and you get 50 extra points. The game ends when someone runs out of tiles and the bag is empty, or when nobody can score.
What's in the box
A standard English set has 100 tiles: 98 letters and 2 blanks. The blanks can stand for any letter but score nothing. All the letter tiles together are worth 187 points.
| Points | Letters (number of tiles) |
|---|---|
| 0 | Blank (2) |
| 1 | A (9), E (12), I (9), L (4), N (6), O (8), R (6), S (4), T (6), U (4) |
| 2 | D (4), G (3) |
| 3 | B (2), C (2), M (2), P (2) |
| 4 | F (2), H (2), V (2), W (2), Y (2) |
| 5 | K (1) |
| 8 | J (1), X (1) |
| 10 | Q (1), Z (1) |
The board has 225 squares. 61 of them are premium squares: 24 double letter, 12 triple letter, 17 double word (including the centre star) and 8 triple word.
Starting the game
- Each player draws one tile. The one closest to A goes first; a blank beats everything. Put the tiles back and mix.
- Everyone draws seven tiles for their rack.
- The first word must use at least two tiles and cover the centre star. The star is a double word square, so the opening word scores double.
Taking a turn
On your turn, do one of three things:
- Play a word. Place tiles in one straight line, reading left to right or top to bottom; no diagonals. The new tiles have to connect to tiles already on the board, and every new word they form, across or down, has to be valid. Then draw back up to seven.
- Exchange tiles. Put any number of tiles back in the bag and draw the same number. You can only do this while the bag still has at least seven tiles, and you score nothing that turn.
- Pass. You score nothing.
How scoring works
Add up the points on the letters, then apply the premium squares under the tiles you just placed:
- A double or triple letter square doubles or triples that one letter.
- A double or triple word square doubles or triples the whole word, including letters that were already on the board.
- Letter premiums go first, then word premiums. Cover two word squares in one word and they multiply: two double word squares give four times the score.
- A premium square counts only on the turn a tile first covers it. Later words that pass through it get no bonus.
- If your tiles form more than one word, every one of them scores, premiums and all.
Example: you play QUIZ with the Z on a triple letter square. Q (10) + U (1) + I (1) + Z (10 × 3 = 30) = 42 points. If the Q also sat on a double word square, the whole word doubles: 84.
The bingo
Use all seven tiles in one turn and you add 50 points on top of the word's score. Players call it a bingo. Common letters make bingos far more often than rare ones: A, E, I, N, R, S and T alone spell nine different words, including RETAINS, NASTIER and STAINER. Our unscramble pages list the bingos for a rack, and which letter on the board would give an eight-letter one.
Blank tiles
When you play a blank, say which letter it stands for. It stays that letter for the rest of the game. It's worth zero, so a blank used as Z scores nothing for the Z itself, though a word square still multiplies the rest of the word.
Which words are allowed
Agree on a dictionary before you start. In standard play, these aren't allowed:
- proper nouns and anything that's always capitalized
- abbreviations, unless they've become words of their own (RADAR, SCUBA)
- words with a hyphen or an apostrophe
- prefixes and suffixes on their own
Foreign words count only once they're part of English. Clubs and tournaments use official word lists that differ a little between North America and the rest of the world. To check a word fast, type it into our Scrabble word finder. Our list is the public-domain ENABLE list, which is close to, but not the same as, the official tournament lists.
Challenges
If you think a word isn't valid, challenge it before the next player starts their turn and look it up. In the common home rule, if the word is wrong, the player takes the tiles back and scores nothing for that turn. If the word is fine, the challenger loses their next turn. Tournaments use variations, such as a points penalty instead of a lost turn.
Ending the game
The game ends when one player has used all their tiles and the bag is empty. It also ends after six scoreless turns in a row, if a player chooses to stop. Then:
- Every player subtracts the points left on their own rack.
- If someone went out, they add the total of everyone else's leftover tiles to their score.
Highest score wins. Leftover tiles can swing a close game, so near the end it's worth dumping your high-value letters.
SCRABBLE is a trademark of Hasbro in the US and Canada and of Mattel elsewhere. We aren't affiliated with either. Rules summarised from the standard game; tile counts checked against the published English distribution.