THE ULTIMATE PICK FOR FAMILY GAME NIGHT!
Grab some snacks, pour some drinks and gather the family around the table for a good, old-fashioned game of Scrabble. April 13 is National Scrabble Day. Let’s celebrate! In honor of the occasion, here are five fun facts about Scrabble which you may or may not know:
- Scrabble will celebrate its 90th birthday next year. The game was invented in 1931 by New York City architect Alfred Mosher Butts.
- According to this 2019 article in Money, Scrabble holds the number five spot on the list of best-selling board games of all time, with chess coming in at the top.
- The North American Scrabble Players Association (NASPA), which boasts more than 2,000 members and a database of more than 10,000 players, has an exclusive license from the game’s maker, Hasbro, to administer competitive Scrabble play in the United States and Canada.
- The game was originally called “Criss Cross Words” and was initially a dud, losing money for its owners during its first two decades of existence. But that all changed around 1950 when the president of Macy’s took a liking to the game while on vacation.
- Three out of every five households in the U.S. has a Scrabble set.
