Alfred Butts created Scrabble by translating his love of crossword puzzles into a board game. He analyzed letter frequencies in the New York Times to determine how many of each letter to include. Butts initially called the game 'Lexiko' but later sold the rights to James Brunot who renamed it Scrabble. Scrabble is played on a board with 100 letter tiles by forming words across and down. Players take turns drawing tiles, making words, and scoring based on letters and premium squares until all tiles are played to determine a winner.