The Best Scrabble Bingo Stems (and How to Use Them)

In Scrabble, playing all seven tiles in one turn earns a 50-point bonus on top of the word's score. Club and tournament players call this a bingo, and it is the single biggest swing in the game: a bingo is often worth 70 to 90 points once the tiles and premium squares are counted. Strong players do not find bingos by luck. They keep certain letter combinations on their rack because those combinations turn into seven-letter words with almost any extra tile.

Those combinations are called bingo stems. This guide shows the most productive ones in the TWL06 list (the North American tournament list our Scrabble word finder uses by default) and how to use them in real games.

How we counted

For every six-letter combination of tiles, we added each letter from A to Z and checked whether the resulting seven letters spell at least one valid word in TWL06. A stem's score is the number of extra letters that work. A stem that bingos with 20 different letters is a far better rack to hold than one that only works with an S.

TWL06 contains 24,029 seven-letter words, but they are not spread evenly. A small group of friendly letter sets accounts for a large share of them, and those sets all lean on the same handful of tiles.

The most productive stems

Just below the top ten sit two stems worth knowing for different reasons: AEIRST (18 letters, but 70 words, the most of any stem) and AEINRT (17 letters and 55 words, with no S at all).

Notice how many of these use S. The S is the most valuable tile in the bag for bingo hunting, which is why experienced players rarely spend it on a small play.

AEINST: the king of stems

The letters A, E, I, N, S and T (which spell TISANE, a herbal tea) bingo with 23 different tiles. Only J, Q and Y fail to make a seven-letter word with it. A selection of what it makes:

• +D: INSTEAD, SAINTED, STAINED, DETAINS
• +G: SEATING, TEASING, EASTING
• +L: SALIENT, SALTINE, ENTAILS, ELASTIN
• +M: INMATES, TAMEINS, ETAMINS
• +P: PANTIES, SAPIENT, PATINES, SPINATE
• +R: RETAINS, NASTIER, RETINAS, STAINER, STEARIN, RATINES, ANTSIER, RETSINA, ANESTRI
• +V: NATIVES, VAINEST, NAIVEST
• +X: SEXTAIN, ANTISEX
• +Z: ZANIEST, ZEATINS

The +R line is famous among word-game players: RETAINS and its eight anagrams make it one of the most anagram-rich seven-letter racks in the language.

AEIRST: the most words

The letters of SATIRE bingo with 18 extra tiles, but they produce 70 different words, the most of any stem in our count. Some highlights:

• +D: ASTRIDE, TIRADES, STAIDER, DISRATE
• +L: REALIST, SALTIER, RETAILS
• +P: PIRATES, PARTIES, TRAIPSE, PIASTER
• +T: ARTISTE, ATTIRES, STRIATE, TASTIER
• +W: WAITERS, WARIEST, WAISTER

AEINRT: no S required

Not every great stem needs an S. The letters of RETINA bingo with 17 tiles:

• +C: CERTAIN, CREATIN
• +G: GRANITE, TEARING, INGRATE, TANGIER
• +L: LATRINE, RELIANT, RETINAL, RATLINE
• +P: PAINTER, PERTAIN, REPAINT
• +U: URINATE, TAURINE, RUINATE

Holding AEINRT and waiting for the S is a classic play: with an S it becomes RETAINS and friends, and without one you still have a good chance with C, G, L, P and others.

How to use stems in a real game

Keep a balanced rack

You will rarely draw a perfect stem. What you can do is steer toward one. After each play, think about your leave: the tiles you keep. A leave of E, R, S, T or A, I, N, E gives you a strong chance of a bingo next turn. A leave of U, U, V or I, I, W does the opposite.

Spend the clunky tiles, keep the friendly ones

When you have a choice between two similar-scoring plays, use the one that gets rid of awkward letters (duplicates, a lone U, a V or a W) and keeps the stem letters. Over a game, this habit produces far more bingos than hoping for a lucky draw.

Do not burn the S cheaply

Using an S to add a few points by pluralising a word is often a bad trade. An S on your rack makes a bingo much more likely. Unless the S play scores well, keep it.

Learn the anagrams

Knowing that AEINST plus R makes nine words is useless if you cannot find one under time pressure. Practise by picking a stem and listing its bingos without help. Then check yourself with the anagram solver. Our article on how anagrams make you better at word games has more drills.

Find a place to play it

A bingo needs a lane on the board. Before you commit to a leave, look for open rows and columns, and especially for spots where your seven letters can hook onto an existing word with an S or an E. Bingo stems are only valuable if the board gives you somewhere to put them.

Collins players get even more

Collins Scrabble Words, used in the UK and most international play, contains every TWL06 word plus tens of thousands more. The stems in this article are just as productive under Collins, and extra letters start to work as well: AEINST bingos with 24 letters (it gains a J), while AEIRST and AEINRT both rise to 20. If you play internationally, switch the dictionary to Collins in the word unscrambler to see the longer lists.

What about Words With Friends?

Words With Friends pays a 35-point bonus for using all seven tiles instead of 50, and it uses a different word list. The same stems still help, because English spelling is the same in both games, but the smaller bonus means a big premium-square play can be worth as much as a bingo. Our Scrabble vs Words With Friends comparison explains the differences.

Where to start

You do not need hundreds of words to bingo more often. Memorise a few strong stems, starting with AEINST, AEIRST and AEINRT, keep your rack balanced around E, A, I, R, S, T, N and L, and you should find yourself playing all seven tiles noticeably more often than you used to.