HISTORY OF SCRABBLE©

In 1947, however, James Brunot re-entered the picture by returning from Washington, where he had been the wartime executive director of the President’s War Relief and Control Board. Brunot had made one or two changes to the game, including the rule about starting across the middle instead of in the top left corner, and, perhaps more inspirationally, changing the name to Scrabble©. No particular significance attached to the word: it just happened to be one of several nice-sounding possibilities that research showed had not already been registered as a trade name. Under a new arrangement between the two, Brunot would manufacture and market the newly named game through his business facility, the Production and Marketing Company.

In the three years from 1949 to 1951 sales of Scrabble© remained at the disappointingly low level of under 10,000 per annum. It was only in 1952, when Jack Strauss played and enjoyed it on holiday, that the game found the break it had been looking for. Strauss was surprised on returning to work to learn that Scrabble© was not on sale at New York City’s famous department store, Macy’s. Once there, everybody who was anybody started buying it. The game caught on and became a national craze. Within two years, Brunot’s company had sold over four million sets.

Shortly after, Brunot sold to Selchow and Righter (who had long ago rejected Criss-Cross Words) the rights to the manufacture of the standard set, retaining for himself those for non-standard and speciality editions. He kept these until 1971, eventually selling out his entire interest to Selchow and Righter. Scrabble© was introduced to Australia in 1953, being published there by T. R. Urban, and in 1954 to the UK through J. W. Spear and Son, who continue to market and promote the game.

In 1971 Scrabble© achieved the status of national tournament play through the enthusiasm of games fanatic Gyles Brandreth. Brandreth had been struck by the popularity of the game in British prisons, on which he was then writing a book. Intrigued by its tournament possibilities, he put an advertisement in The Times newspaper to assess possible support. The response was overwhelming, and, with the ready co-operation of Spears Games, the British National Scrabble© Championships have become an annual event attracting thousands of competitors.

Today, Scrabble© enjoys wide popularity as both children and adults can easily play the game, and improve with each play. Scrabble© can be called the quintessential game offering "edutainment". At BingoBinge we have presented the game online. People from all over the world can play here and interact with each other. So what are you waiting for? Just Binge!