The crossword-style board game Scrabble is one of the most popular games commonly played in the United States and around the world. The game was initially created in 1938, but not marketed as Scrabble until 1948. Scrabble grew wildly in popularity during the 1950’s after a Macy’s executive played the game for the first time and thought it would become a fast-seller. Selchow and Righter originally marketed the game, but by 1988 (by which time Scrabble had become less popular than it originally had been) the game had been sold to Hasbro, who continues to produce the game today. The game is played with two to four players trying to make interlocking words on a 15 by 15 space game board. In most cases, there are two sides and if there are more players than that they form into competing teams. Scrabble can be played by up to four competing sides, but it generally is played by two as that tends to speed up the game and open up the board. Each player initially draws 7 letters, out of a bag of 100, and the first player, chosen by random draw, makes a word at least 2 letters long starting at the center of the Scrabble board. Following that, the player who made the first move in Scrabble draws additional tiles to replace the ones that were just played. Each player alternates turns making words, interlocking with those already on the board, until one player is out of tiles, with none remaining in the bag, or neither player can form additional words. Each tile in Scrabble is worth a different number of points depending on how rare the letter on it is. Common letters such as E or T are worth one point, while more obscure letters such as Q or Z are worth ten. There are also unique spaces on each Scrabble board that act as multipliers. Some of the spaces increase the value of the letter placed on them (double and triple letter score spaces). Some others increase the value of the entire word placed upon them (double and triple word score spaces). These squares are quite valuable and can be the difference between winning and losing a game of Scrabble. If one player is able to use all seven tiles at one time, they receive an additional fifty points, in addition to the word’s value. This is known, in Scrabble terms, as a bingo. If one player questions the validity of a word that their opponent uses in Scrabble, they may challenge the word. This involves using the Official Scrabble Player’s Dictionary. If the word is valid, the player that challenged loses their next turn. If it turns out that the word is invalid, the player that played the word must take back the letters they used and they lose that turn. A winning score in Scrabble can range from 200 to 700 points depending on how high some of the bigger words score.
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