Home / Blog / How Kabaddi Works: Rules, Scoring, and How to Play Online
How Kabaddi Works: Rules, Scoring, and How to Play Online
Kabaddi looks chaotic if you've never seen it before — one player sprints into enemy territory, several defenders try to stop them, and somehow there's a scoreboard tracking all of it. The core idea is actually simple once it's broken down. Here's how it works, and how PlayHub's browser version maps to it.
The basic loop: raid, tag, return
One side sends a "raider" across the line into the opposing team's half. The raider's job is to touch as many opposing defenders as possible, then get back across the line before being tackled. If they make it back, every defender they touched is out and their team scores a point per touch. If the defenders tackle the raider before they return, the defending team scores instead.
Scoring in the online version
On PlayHub, each raid gives you three choices: Safe Touch (fewer defenders touched, lower risk), Touch & Return (more defenders, more risk), or Skip (no touches, no risk). The math is straightforward — more contact means more potential points but a higher chance the raid ends in a tackle instead.
The revival mechanic
One rule that surprises new players: every 2 tackle points your opponent scores against you revives one of your own tackled-out defenders. This is exactly how real Kabaddi works — it's designed so a team that's down defenders can claw back into a match by playing solid defense, rather than the game snowballing toward whichever side gets an early lead.
A full match
PlayHub matches run 40 raids total, alternating sides, with whichever team has the higher score at the end winning. Real competitive Kabaddi splits into two 20-minute halves rather than counting raids, but the underlying scoring logic — touches, tackles, revivals — is the same idea condensed into a browser-length match.
Play a match
That covers the full scoring loop — the fastest way to actually understand it is to play a raid yourself.