Scrabble Game Rules
Official Scrabble Rules by Hasbro
Object of the game:
Be the player with the highest final score.
Game
Players create joining words, in a crossword puzzle type fashion, placing the tiles on the board. The tiles have different values. Every player tries to get the highest score by taking full advantage of the letter points dealt, and already played on the board. You can also use the premium squares on the board to boost your scores! Player 1 always starts first.
Every player in the game, begins with seven tiles (letters) in their rack. The first player combines at least two tiles (letters) to create a word and places it on the game board so in turn it reads either across or downwards. At least one of the letters must be placed on the square in the very centre of the board the STAR.
On the following turns, every player in the game must add at least 1 or more letters to the words on the board to create new ones. Each letter played in a turn has to be placed in only one row, either across or down, to form at least one new complete word. Any word played in the game must be at least 2 letters long. (view all two letter scrabble words) If the letters you have played touch other letters in different rows, then they have to have created complete words. The player then gets all the points for any modified on that go.
The player finishes their turn by calculating the letter scores of each new word formed on that go. The player then replaces the tiles used, always keeping 7 letters in their rack.
In the game you will find BLANK tiles, and these can be used as ANY letter. When a player states which letter the blank will be used as, it will stay that letter for the complete game and can not be changed.
A player can use his or her go to exchange their tiles, they can replace as many as they like, only if there are at least 7 letters left to draw. The players letters that they exchange are returned to the bag of letters. This completes the players turn.
Every word, this including foreign, obsolete, colloquial and slang, are permitted, you can check to see if it is acceptable using our scrabble word checker. Some words that are not permitted are those that are abbreviations, prefixes, suffixes that are used alone, and those needing a hyphen and or an apostrophe.
The game is complete when each and every letter has been drawn and one player uses their last letter; or when there are no more possible plays left.
Scoring
Scoring for the SCRABBLE computer game is done automatically. Here is how the scores are calculated
For each turn the score is the value of the letters in each word you have created modified on that turn, plus the value of the extra points you can obtain by using the premium squares on the board.
Premium squares on the board: The score for a complete word is then doubled if its letters are placed on a pink square, tripled on a red square. Premiums for the either double or triple letter values are included also before doubling or tripling the score if your word is placed across two premium squares. The score would then be doubled and then re-doubled equaling four times the letter sum. Please note that the first square you use the STAR square always doubles the very first word played!
You can only use premium squares once on the turn in which they are played.
When using a blank tile, and it lies on a pink or a red square, the scored of the word is doubled or tripled, even though the blank tile does not have a score value.
If two or more words are created in the same turn, each is scored. The common letter is added with FULL premium score, if any for each word.
If you play all 7 tiles on a single turn you get what is called a "BINGO" and you add an extra 50 points to your total score for the turn.
When the game is complete, any letters left unplayed are subtracted from the players score. If you have used all of the letters, the sum of the other players unplayed tiles are added to your score.
How to Win
The player with the highest final score wins the game. You can use a word finder to help you score higher in Scrabble. For the full rule list please visit the rules for scrabble page.
