What is pass in betting?
The word “pass” (or passability) has several meanings when it comes to sports betting. Let's consider all of them, along the way we will discuss a few more important aspects of betting. Ready? Then let's get started.
Meanings of the term "passage" and its variations
What is a bet pass?
In the broadest sense, this means the fact that the bettor's bet has won, that is, passed. For example, a player bets on TB (2.5) goals in football. After the third goal, without waiting for the end of the match, the bookmaker fixes the passage of the bet and calculates the payout on it.
To pass the bet on the winner of the match, you will have to wait until the end of the game. If the player has correctly identified the winning team of the match, then this is a pass, that is, his bet has passed. A Long Term Tournament Winner Bet will pass when the selected athlete (or team) wins the title in a particular competition.
The probability of passing the bet
In the betting world, you can often hear the persistent phrase “probability of passing the bet”. In general, this is a rather ephemeral concept, because in sports there are a lot of factors that affect the probability of an outcome, and no one knows the exact probabilities. The bookmaker may have one opinion, the professional player may have the opposite, and Uncle Vasya from the next doorway may have a third opinion.
The probability of any outcome, according to the bookmaker, is determined by the odds on this outcome. If you divide a hundred by a coefficient, you get an approximate estimate of the probability as a percentage.
For example, here the bookmaker estimates the probability of Anderson's victory at about 35% (100 / 2.85), and Schwartzman's - about 70% (100 / 1.43). "Extra" 5% was formed due to the margin in this market.
But each bettor may have his own personal opinion regarding this event, which allows players to earn on inflated odds. For example, if a player estimates the probability of Anderson's victory at 45-50%, then it will be profitable for him to bet on the victory of the South African. This is the essence of value-betting.
Other possible meanings of the word "pass"
Team Pass Bet
The next meaning of the word “pass” is such a rate. For individual bookmakers, it may be designated “To Qualify” or “Pass selection”.
It means that the team (or athlete) must advance to the next round of the tournament. Such bets are very common in football, especially in tournaments with two-match rounds. In particular, in the Champions League playoffs, before each round, a bet is offered on the team's passage to the next stage on the aggregate of two matches.
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Example: Champions League 1/8 finals two-legged match between Barcelona and Ajax. The Spaniards won the first match at home 3: 0. Even if Ajax can win the return game with a score of 1: 0, 2: 0, 2: 1 or 3: 1, they will not advance to the next round. Therefore, the bookmakers will give different outcomes for their victory in the match and for the passage to the next round of the competition. The odds for their passage to the quarterfinals will be much higher than for winning a particular game.
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A similar bet can be found in the playoffs of major international tournaments, where a draw is excluded (when extra time and penalty shootouts are assigned in case of a draw, if required). For example, at the European Football Championship 2024 (2024), in each playoff match, it was possible to put on the passage of each national team to the next round based on the results of extra time and a penalty shootout. You can find such bets in the NBA, MLB and NHL playoffs, where rounds are played in a series of matches up to four wins.
Another meaning of the phrase “pass rate” is, in fact, the passage of a team to a certain round of competition in the long-term sense. For example, going to the 1/8 finals, the semi-finals or the final of a certain tournament, when it has not even started yet. You can almost always bet on this too. Bookmakers offer such bets with wordings like “Advance to the final” or “Advance to the quarter of the final”. To pass such a bet, it is necessary that the selected athlete (or team) eventually go to the selected round of the competition.
What is passability in bets?
Let us examine one more word that has one root with the word passage - passability. As a rule, they denote the percentage of bets that the bettor wins at a distance. A value of 50% passability means that the bettor has half of all his bets on the course. But many unscrupulous cappers manipulate this indicator, indicating only this very percentage of passage or percentage of passability.
Some overestimate this indicator at times, indicating fabulous figures like 80-99%, while the TOP world level on an equal line is about 60%. But here the problem is also that the percentage of the passage itself does not carry any information at all. You can have a pass rate of 75% and be in the red in terms of money. And you can have an excellent profit even with the passage of only 15% of the bets.
Don't believe me? Let's count:
Capper A is betting on the victories of the big favorites in football and tennis. The average odds that he plays are around 1.25. Yes, he has 75% of the bets passability, and out of 1000 of his last bets, 750 have passed. Let's say he makes bets of 1000 rubles per match. Its turnover for 1000 bets amounted to 1,000,000 rubles, and payments were only 937,500 rubles. In total, he is in the red in terms of money at a distance of 62,500 rubles (750x1000x1.25 - 1,000,000).
Capper B bets on overtime strategy in basketball, and the average odds there are around 15.00 (sometimes 12, sometimes higher than 20). He made 1000 bets of 1000 rubles each and only 150 of them passed (15%). But what payments did he receive? 150x1000x15 = 2,250,000 rubles. That is, it is in the black by 1,250,000 rubles and has an insane ROI (Yield) of + 125%!
Thus, in itself, the percentage of passability is completely uninformative. This indicator can be useful only in conjunction with the average bettor's rate. If we multiply the pass percentage by the average coefficient, it becomes clear whether it is a negative or positive capper.
75% х 1.25 = 0,9375 15% х 15 = 2,25
The break-even point in this case is one. If the result is less than one, the capper is minus. If more than one - positive. The greater the calculated difference with one, the better (or worse) the skills of this or that bettor. Also, the value of the percentage of passability directly depends on the financial strategy chosen by the bettor (flat, catch-up, Kelly criterion, etc.), in contrast to more objective betting metrics - ROI and Yield.
