Score the Fight: a Boxing Scorecard Tool for Three Judges’ Cards

How to score a round

Professional boxing in the UK is scored under the 10-point must system. At the end of every round each judge must give 10 points to the boxer they think won it and a lower score to the other. The usual score is 10-9. A knockdown normally makes the round 10-8, although under British Boxing Board of Control guidance a knockdown is worth one point, so an otherwise even round is 10-9; two knockdowns usually make it 10-7, and a round the judge genuinely cannot separate is 10-10. The judges score on clean punches, defence, ring generalship and effective aggression, and each one does it alone, without conferring.

The tool gives you one select per judge per round with those scores: 10-9 Red, 10-9 Blue, 10-8 Red, 10-8 Blue, 10-7 Red, 10-7 Blue and 10-10, plus a dash for a round not yet scored. The corner word is written into every option, so the card reads correctly without colour. Choose the scheduled rounds first (12, 10, 8, 6 or 4); if you shorten a card that already has scores beyond the new length, the tool asks before it discards them. Three buttons save time: Copy Judge 1 to Judges 2 and 3 when you only want to score the fight once (three matching cards read as a unanimous decision, or a unanimous draw if Judge 1’s card is level; a fight scored by the referee alone has one card, so it is simply a points win or a draw, and how a “by unanimous decision” bet settles on it is up to each bookmaker’s rules), Clear card to start again, and Example card to reload the card shown on this page.

A point deduction for a foul is not a separate field. The referee orders it, and each judge takes it off that boxer’s score for the round, so a 10-9 round becomes 9-9 or 10-8. A round that ends 10-8 after a deduction can be entered as 10-8, but a 9-9 round cannot, so treat a card with a deduction as an approximation. On a twelve-round card every total therefore lands between 84, which would mean losing every round 10-7, and 120.

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Three judges, three cards

World-level fights and most fights abroad are scored by three judges seated at ringside, usually on different sides of the ring, while the referee runs the bout without scoring it. Under British Boxing Board of Control rules most UK contests are scored by the referee alone, and three judges are used for British, Commonwealth, European and world title fights and other contests the Board’s Stewards decide need them; on a single card there is no split or majority decision. Each judge’s total produces a card: red, blue or level. The result comes from comparing the three cards, not from adding them together, which is why a boxer can take more total points across the three cards and still lose a split decision.

There are only ten ways three cards can fall, and the tool names each one:

Until every round on every card has a score, the totals are marked provisional and the panel says how many rounds each judge has left, for example “Judge 2 has 3 rounds left to score.” The verdict appears only once the card is complete.

A worked example: one round changes the decision

The example card is a close twelve-round fight. Judge 1 gives the red corner rounds 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 9 and 10, all 10-9, and the blue corner the other five, so the card reads 115–⁠113 for red. Judge 2 gives round 5 to blue instead and has the fight level at 114–⁠114. Judge 3 agrees with Judge 1 round by round except for round 8, which is a blue knockdown round scored 10-8, so the card reads 114–⁠113 for red: seven rounds to five for red, but only one point in it. Two cards for red and one level make it Red wins by majority decision.

Now change round 3 on the third card from red to blue. Judge 3’s card becomes 114–⁠113 for blue, and the three cards read red, level and blue: a split draw. Put round 3 back, and instead give round 7 on the second card to blue. Judge 2 then has blue ahead 115–⁠113, the cards read red, blue and red, and the result becomes Red wins by split decision. One knockdown and one swing round are enough to move the same fight between three different result types.

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What your card means for a points or draw bet

Once the card is complete, the panel adds a short note on how that result usually settles. For a decision, the note reads that most UK bookmakers settle a “win on points” or “win by decision” bet on the winning boxer as a winner for a unanimous, split or majority decision, while markets that name the decision type, such as “by unanimous decision”, settle on that type only. For any draw it reads that in a three-way fight market most UK bookmakers settle the draw as a winner whether it is unanimous, majority or split, bets on either boxer lose, and in a draw-no-bet market the stake is usually returned.

The example shows why this matters. A bet on the red corner on points is settled as a winner on the majority decision and on the split decision, but it loses on the split draw, and a bet on the draw is settled the other way round. A bet on red by unanimous decision loses on all three versions. The points markets, the draw and the decision-type markets are explained in our boxing betting markets guide.

What the tool does not do

The scorecard adds up the scores you enter; it does not judge a fight or reproduce the official cards of any real bout. It does not handle a fight that ends early by stoppage, or a technical decision after a clash of heads, where the judges score the rounds completed including the part round. Its settlement notes describe the usual practice, not any one bookmaker’s rules, so read your bookmaker’s house rules and our boxing betting rules guide for the edge cases. The full scoring rules, from knockdowns to deductions, are in our guide to how boxing is scored, the other calculators are on the tools page, and every guide is linked from the homepage.