How Scrabble was invented

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collect nine random

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letters and create words from it. Alfred

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chose the amount of letter tiles in

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their point system by analyzing none

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other than the frequency of letters in

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the front pages of several

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newspapers. Sadly, no major success came

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from this. In 1938, Alfred continued

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crafting his game and decided to

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decrease the number of collected letters

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to seven and add a 15 by 15 squares

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board with several bonus spots. Looking

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more familiar now, no the name of

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choice, crisscross words. But sadly for

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Alfred, still no

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success. Usually it's third time lucky,

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but Alfred still needed a bit of help.

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Enter James Bruno.

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He loved crisscross words and thought

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that with some tweaks it could be a huge

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success. So he got to work. Among his

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changes were a new board color scheme, a

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new 50point bonus rule for using all

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seven tiles and most importantly the new

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iconic name scrabble which means to

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scratch or dig frantically with the

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hands. Sounds about right. James meant

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business. He also bought the

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manufacturing