Scrabble letter distributions
frequency and point value of each letter or digraph in a Scrabble game tile set
Editions of the word board game Scrabble in different languages have differing letter distributions of the tiles, because the frequency of each letter of the alphabet is different for every language. As a general rule, the rarer the letter, the more points it is worth.
Most languages use sets of 100 tiles, since the original distribution of 98 tiles was later augmented with two blank tiles. In tournament play, while it is acceptable to pause the game to count the tiles remaining in the game, it is not acceptable to mention how many tiles are remaining at any time. Several online tools exist for counting tiles during friendly play.
Official editions
Scrabble editions listed in this section are officially licensed by Hasbro (for North America) or Mattel (for the rest of the world).
English (original)
English-language editions of Scrabble contain 100 letter tiles, in the following distribution:
2 blank tiles (scoring 0 points)
1 point: E ×12, A ×9, I ×9, O ×8, N ×6, R ×6, T ×6, L ×4, S ×4, U ×4
2 points: D ×4, G ×3
3 points: B ×2, C ×2, M ×2, P ×2
4 points: F ×2, H ×2, V ×2, W ×2, Y ×2
5 points: K ×1
8 points: J ×1, X ×1
10 points: Q ×1, Z ×1
The total number of points is 187. Diacritical marks (such as "ñ" in words borrowed from Spanish) are ignored.
When Alfred Butts invented the game, he initially experimented with different distributions of letters. A popular story claims that Butts created an elaborate chart by studying the front page of The New York Times to create his final choice of letter distributions.
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