Scrabble Word games

Bingo - Scrabble

Bingo is a slang term used in Scrabble for a play using all of one's tiles. A player who does this receives 50 points in addition to what the word would normally score. Mattel, the game's manufacturer in the United Kingdom, use the term bonus to describe such a word. In French, it is called a scrab.

Bingos are an important part of achieving high scores in Scrabble. While many beginners rarely play even one during a game, experts frequently score three or more. Much advanced strategy revolves around maximizing one's chance of playing of a bingo: blank tiles are hoarded, unwelcome letters are played even for a low score, and flexible letter groups such as AEINST (a six-letter "stem" that anagrams with 24 letters - all but Q and Y - to form nearly 70 bingos) are aimed for until a bingo is formed. This strategy is often at direct odds with that of placing high-value letters on premium squares.

A common misconception is that the bonus received for using all seven tiles is multiplied if a double-word or triple-word score is used. This is not the case: a 9-point word using seven tiles played across a triple-word score is worth 77 points (3 times 9 plus 50 points for the bonus).

Bingo examples

These facts are according to the SOWPODS lexicon as amended in 2006.

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