According to a study released in 2017 by the University of Miami, which gender is more successful at the board game Scrabble?

According to a study released in 2017 by the University of Miami, males are more successful at the game Scrabble. The last ten Scrabble world champions have all been men, even though just as many women participated.

During world championships, players are divided into divisions according to skill level. In 2002, 86 percent of competitors in the division with the best Scrabble players were male, while in the division with the lowest performance only 31 per cent of competitors were male, even though a greater number of females participated.

In the 2004 and 2008 US National Scrabble tournaments, researchers from the University of Miami asked almost 300 participants about their training and then examined their game ratings.

Researchers found that both genders played Scrabble for comparable amounts of time. Women treated the playing of Scrabble like a hobby where the objective was to have fun and not win. Men however, spent much more time analysing past games and practising anagrams, which gave them the winning edge in tournaments. Males were more apt to examining the strategies of those who beat them in the past, and emulating these strategies in their future games.

Dr. Moxley of the University of Miami said the gender gap does not indicate there is a huge gap in ability but rather reflects a gender difference in the approach to training.