Generally, draughts is British English word for a game, but checkers is American English word for a game. Because "draughts" has more meanings than "checkers", sometimes even non-native speakers prefer usage of "checkers" in singular form(!), so "checkers is a board game", but not "checkers are a board game".
As well, it should be noted that in English speaking world "checkers" refers to a variant played under English rules, and for indicating the difference they add adjective "straight (checkers)" which might be confusing to non-native speakers.