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 OWL2 word list is used! Here's the list:
1. qintars
2. qindars
3. aquiver
4. qiviuts
5. equated
6. taeniae
7. eulogiae
8. epinaoi
9. aeolian
10. exuviae
11. equines
12. aeration
13. aeonian
14. zoarial
15. outvied
16. aerolite
17. roilier
18. equates
19. eugenia
20. vauntie
21. requins
22. novenae
23. inertiae
24. feijoas
25. auditee
26. quoined
27. quinoas
28. volante
29. quantal
30. liquors
31. zouaves
32. unitive
33. aviator
34. inutile
35. inwoven
36. anterior
37. alienee
38. aeneous
39. footier
40. emotive
41. audition
42. dejecta
43. aureolae
44. avenged
45. esquired
46. rainout
47. quinols
48. urinator
49. toquets
50. retiarii
(Note to SOWPODS players: since all OWL2 words are legal under SOWPODS, the words above are still useful to memorize. It is likely that they are among the most commonly played bingos in SOWPODS, too.)
The list is presented in playrank order, meaning that the most played word "qintars" 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.
For more of the best bingo words, see the article "The Most Common 3-Letter Endings for Scrabble Bingos" and its accompanying word lists ("The Most Played Bingos that End with -IER", etc.). Also, check out our article on anagrammable bingo words.
Notice that many of the best bingo words are also "vowel dumps" (words that let you use many vowels at once, such as "taeniae"). The article "The Top 50 Most Played Vowel Dumps..." talks more about vowel dumps.
This list is original research from ScrabbleGuru.com. Come visit us for more!