Blackjack Insurance Bet – Is It A Good Bet?
Before we get into when and how to use the Blackjack Insurance rule, let’s first understand what is the Blackjack Insurance bet? The Blackjack Insurance bet is offered to players when the croupier’s up card is an Ace. Before you play your hand, the croupier will ask if you want to take insurance. Insurance is in fact you betting on the dealer having Blackjack.
If you are right, your win is paid 2 to 1. However, Blackjack Insurance is a side bet so you lose your main bet. One of the major reasons most players don’t opt for Blackjack Insurance is the fact that you can only take insurance for up to half of your main bet! Before you dismiss the bet, read on – there are instances when the insurance Blackjack is your best bet at Black Lotus Casino.
Amount You Can Wager And Payoff
As we highlighted in the paragraph above, one of the major reasons for blackjack players not choosing insurance is because most casinos only allow you to wager up to half of your initial bet. In some casinos, the amount is lesser. But at Black Lotus, you can wager up to half your initial bet. This means, in a $10 wager where the dealer’s up card is an Ace you will be given an option to select Blackjack Insurance bet.
If you opt for insurance, you place half your initial bet, which is $5 on the Insurance line. Should the dealer’s other card be a 10 or face card, he will get a Blackjack or 21 and the insurance bet will be paid at 2 to 1 odds. So, in a $5 insurance blackjack bet you would win $10. Important to note that your original $10 wager will be lost to the dealer’s blackjack.
When to Take Insurance in Blackjack?
Should you take insurance in Blackjack, you may ask? The insurance bet is you determining how many 10 and face cards are left in the card deck. If the dealer’s up card is an Ace, there is a high probability that the dealer’s other card or hole card is a 10 or a face card. In order to win you need the dealer’s hole card to be a 10 or face card.
Like you will hear and read almost everywhere the blackjack Insurance bet is mostly avoided because it is a losing bet. You lose your initial bet and win up to half of your initial bet only. The Insurance Bet pays expert card counters but only in the long run.
Players at Black Lotus play Blackjack for recreation and the enjoyment that winning provides. Essentially, the best time to take the insurance bet is when you’re aware of the card value each player has received, you keep track of the ratio of total 10 value cards dealt.
Why Do Casinos Offer The Insurance Bet?
The word Insurance means an arrangement or deal of sorts that you accept from an institution that provides a guarantee or compensation for a determined damage or loss. Looking at this meaning, players understand that the insurance Bet will compensate or protect them for a loss.
This is why casinos offer the Insurance Bet, as a means of protecting you. While this is true, many critics claim that this is a perceived protection and the details of the Insurance Bet confirm this. The most important details of the Blackjack Insurance bet are:
- It is a side bet and does not increase your chances of winning.
- You’re not insuring anything, you are betting on the dealer getting a blackjack.
Simple Math of The Insurance Wager
Earlier, we discussed a $10 original wager and a $5 insurance wager. In this example, when the dealer had a blackjack you won $10 but lost your original $10 bet. The $10 in your original bet is the same amount you won in the bet – this is called even money.
In even money the odds are 50/50 – pretty easy right? However when the payoff odds are less than the real odds of winning you are at a loss.
The odds of a dealer having a 10 value card in the hole and the ratio of non 10 value cards to 10 value cards is important. In a single deck this ratio is 36 to 16. Let’s assume a perfect opportunity to use the bet – the dealer’s up card is an Ace and proceeds to ask you if you want to take insurance. In this example you bet $1 on insurance. We are going to ignore the two cards dealt to you for now. Looking at the ratio of non 10 value cards to 10 value cards means that:
- If you made a $1 insurance bet and the dealer didn’t get blackjack 35 times you would lose a total of $35
- If the dealer did get blackjack, you would win 16 times, winning a total of $32
- After playing through the deck, you would lose $35 and win $32, making the net loss $3
Summary
We think that you should try all possible bets at least once. The Blackjack Insurance bet isn’t a long term strategy but it can be used in favorable circumstances.
We recommend reading through our online blackjack strategy guides, master that then move onto opportunities where blackjack insurance is the best bet. On a positive note, when you notice that you’re looking for opportunities to use the insurance bet this means you are enroute to card counting!
