If you play all 7 tiles from your rack during your move, you get 50 bonus points. This is called a "bingo." To play all 7 tiles requires forming a word of 7 or more letters.
Increasing the number of bingos you are able to play is paramount to increasing your average score. By playing one extra bingo per game, you will raise your average score by about 50 points. This is often the difference between a good beginning player and an intermediate level player.
The single best way to improve your bingo playing ability is to memorize the following 50 bingo words. Why? Because they are the top 50 most commonly played bingo words in Scrabble when the SOWPODS word list is used! Here's the list:
1. etaerio
2. qintars
3. aeration
4. erionite
5. equines
6. aeolian
7. qindars
8. etaerios
9. notitiae
10. otarine
11. auditee
12. inertiae
13. eulogiae
14. douanier
15. aquiver
16. aeonian
17. routine
18. qiviuts
19. taeniae
20. eulogia
21. aerotone
22. novated
23. equants
24. aerolite
25. olearia
26. etourdie
27. equinia
28. eugarie
29. equated
30. eaterie
31. douleia
32. requite
33. quinoas
34. aileron
35. aieries
36. epinaoi
37. etiolate
38. aerobia
39. aegirite
40. uredinia
41. godetia
42. aboiteau
43. aleurone
44. erasion
45. ebonite
46. diorite
47. eugenia
48. denarii
49. aureate
50. inertia
The list is presented in playrank order, meaning that the most played word ETAERIO is at the top and the words become less commonly played further down the list. However, the chance of being able to play any one bingo is small so the difference in playrank order is not as significant as in some lists on this site.
Notice that many of the best bingo words are also "vowel dumps" (words that let you use many vowels at once, such as ETAERIO and AERATION).
This list is original research from ScrabbleGuru.com. Come visit us for more!