How Are the Point Values for Scrabble Letters Determined?

Reaching into a Scrabble bag and pulling out an x, q, and z in one go often brings a sigh of frustration. As some of the rarest letters in the English language, they’re notoriously challenging to place on the board, especially q, which typically requires a following u (though not always).

Despite the challenge of using these uncommon tiles, their high point values can make them highly rewarding. For example, a well-positioned z worth 10 points could boost your score far more than a single-point a or n. It’s clear that rarer letters deserve higher points, but how did the creators of the game decide the exact distribution?

The story begins during the Great Depression when Alfred Mosher Butts, an architect without work, spent his time studying games like bingo, chess, and anagrams. He realized that word-based games lacked a good scoring system, so he created his own word game, initially called Lexiko, then Criss Cross Words, and finally Scrabble.

To determine the scoring, Butts didn't have to look far—he simply turned to the front page of The New York Times. As reported by the South Florida Reporter, he counted how often each letter appeared in print, using this information to set the point values and decide how many tiles would be allocated for each letter.

Although the official Scrabble dictionary has evolved since the game’s release in the 1950s, Butts’s original letter values remain unchanged. The Scrabble set still includes only one x and one z tile, both worth 10 points, and two four-point tiles for letters like f, h, v, w, and y, among others.

Learn more intriguing Scrabble trivia, including the famous 'strip search incident' from a world championship, here.

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