A bingo is a play that uses all seven tiles on your rack in one turn. In Scrabble it earns a 50 point bonus on top of the word's score, so one bingo can be worth several ordinary turns. In close games between experienced players, bingos often decide the result.
Bingos take more than luck. You need to keep the right tiles, know which letter groups form long words, and find a spot on the board to play them.
Seven letters or eight
Most bingos are one of two lengths:
- Seven letters, using only your tiles. After the first turn, these need an open lane where seven letters fit next to, or hook onto, a word already on the board.
- Eight letters, using your seven tiles plus one tile already on the board. These are often easier to place, because playing through a board letter opens up lanes you could not otherwise use.
The word list this site uses has 25,192 seven letter words and 31,444 eight letter words. Eight is its most common word length.
Keep a good rack
The tiles you keep after a play (your "leave") decide what you can do next turn. Players who bingo often tend to give up a few points now to keep a better leave.
- Keep letters that combine well. The blank, S, E, R, A, I, N, T and L appear in many long words. A leave like E R S or A I N T is worth keeping.
- Avoid duplicates. Two of the same letter, especially vowels like I I or U U, make bingos much less likely. Play one of them off when you can.
- Balance vowels and consonants. Nine out of ten seven letter words in our list have two or three of A, E, I, O and U. A rack with six consonants or five vowels rarely forms a bingo.
- Play off awkward tiles. V, W and K are hard to fit into long words. Use them in short scoring plays rather than holding them.
- Do not waste blanks and S tiles. Using a blank or an S for a few extra points in a short word is usually a bad trade. Both are worth far more in a bingo.
Know what is in the bag. A standard English Scrabble set has 100 tiles, including 12 E tiles, 9 A, 9 I, 8 O, 6 each of N, R and T, 4 S and 2 blanks. Late in the game, count the tiles that have been played to work out what you are likely to draw.
Learn the best stems
A stem is a group of six letters that makes a seven letter word with many different seventh letters. If you know a few stems, you can spot a bingo on your rack without trying every arrangement.
We checked every six letter group in the seven letter words on our list. The best is A E I N S T, the letters of TISANE. It makes a seven letter word with 24 of the 26 letters, all except Q and Y. Some examples:
| Add | Seven letter words |
|---|---|
| D | INSTEAD, STAINED, SAINTED, DETAINS |
| G | SEATING, TEASING, EASTING, INGESTA |
| L | SALIENT, ENTAILS, SALTINE, ELASTIN |
| M | INMATES, ETAMINS, TAMEINS |
| P | PANTIES, SAPIENT, PATINES, SPINATE |
| R | RETAINS, RETINAS, NASTIER, STAINER |
| V | NATIVES, NAIVEST, VAINEST |
| X | SEXTAIN, ANTISEX |
| Z | ZANIEST, ZEATINS |
Five more stems each combine with 20 different letters: A E E R S T (EASTER, TEASER), A E N R S T (ASTERN), A E L R S T (ALTERS, SALTER), E E R S T T (STREET, TESTER) and E G I N R S (SINGER, RESIGN). SATIRE is close behind with 18. When you have most of one of these stems, keep it and look for the bingo.
Use the finder to check your rack
On the 7 letter word finder, type all seven of your tiles into Make Words With These Letters, with ? for a blank. When the number of letters matches the word length, the finder returns only words that use every tile. For example, SATIRE plus a blank gives 73 different bingos, with the letter the blank stands for highlighted.
If nothing comes back, look at the board for a letter you could play through and add it to your tiles on the 8 letter word finder. With A E I N R S T on your rack and an L on the board, six words fit:
- entrails 8
- latrines 8
- ratlines 8
- retinals 8
- slantier 8
- trenails 8
Then use Letters By Position to match the space you have. If the L sits at the start of an open lane, put it in the first box, and only LATRINES is left.
Practice
To get better at bingos, drill anagrams. Pick a common stem, add each letter of the alphabet in turn, and try to find the word before you check it with the finder.
Words With Friends
Bingos work the same way in Words With Friends, but the bonus for using all seven tiles is 35 points instead of 50. Its word list is also different, so some words valid in one game are not valid in the other.