World English-Language Scrabble Players' Association
The World English-Language Scrabble Players' Association (WESPA) is the global group for English-language Scrabble players and national bodies. It began after a players’ meeting at the 2003 World Scrabble Championship in Kuala Lumpur and was officially formed on 17 November 2005 in London. Biennial General Meetings now happen with the World Scrabble Championship, held every other year, and WESPA has about 24 member organisations.
WESPA represents international Scrabble players and national groups. Its main jobs are to promote Scrabble as serious competition worldwide; help member bodies; protect players’ interests; represent players to other organisations (including the Scrabble trademark owners); encourage common rules, word lists, and ratings; organise global events; publish information; and run a useful website.
The Scrabble trademark is owned by Hasbro in North America and Mattel in other regions. WESPA has helped create international rules, publish a WESPA-endorsed word list for international play, and establish international ratings. The first global rules came out in August 2009 after a six-month consultation. Version 2 appeared in November 2010 and was used in the 2011 World Scrabble Championship in Warsaw. Version 3 arrived in 2015. Some countries use WESPA rules for domestic play (for example, the Association of British Scrabble Players).
For international play, the standard word list is CSW (Collins Scrabble Words). CSW19 became the global list on 1 July 2019. It combines Collins (7th ed., 2005), Chambers (1998), and TWL (the North American list). TWL is a subset of CSW and many North American events use TWL, but any tournament under WESPA must use CSW. CSW19 has more than 275,000 words; about 119,000 of them are eight letters or shorter. TWL has about two-thirds as many words. CSW is larger and includes more global, sometimes local, words.
International Scrabble ratings have been kept since 1993 by Bob Jackman in Sydney. Tournaments that follow WESPA rules can be rated, and updates are posted on the WESPA site. Tournament organisers pay a ratings levy per player so the event can be rated. A calendar of international events is run by WESPA’s tournament committee, which also works with Mattel on World Scrabble Championship issues such as match format. A country’s team size at the World Championship can change based on the previous results.
WESPA also runs the World Scrabble Championship through biennial events from 2015 onward, using the old World Scrabble Championship format with teams qualifying through national bodies. The 2015 winner was Wellington Jighere, the 2017 winner Akshay Bhandarkar, the 2019 final was Nigel Richards vs Jesse Day (Richards won in game 7), the 2021 event was held online and won by Alastair Richards, and the 2023 championship in Las Vegas was won by David Eldar.
The World Youth Scrabble Championships (now called the WESPA Youth Cup) have been held annually since 2006 for players under 18. WESPA has a youth committee that promotes the game and runs workshops.
WESPA’s committees include people from member nations. The current chair is Elie Dangoor (UK). Subcommittees handle promotions, ratings, rules, dictionaries, and youth. The first chair was Allan Simmons; he was followed by Roy Kietzmann, who died in 2009 before Dangoor’s appointment. Dangoor left in 2019 and was replaced by Chris Lipe.
WESPA also works with other global Scrabble groups, such as FISF (French-speaking) and FISE (Spanish-speaking). There is a world Scrabble mailing list for discussions.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 19:41 (CET).