What Does Insure Bet Mean In Blackjack

Blackjack
  1. What Does Insure Bet Mean In Blackjack Betting
  2. What Does Insure Bet Mean In Blackjack Poker

A question I get asked quite frequently by casino players is whether they should take insurance in blackjack. It seems to be something that confuses a lot of people, even among those that fullyunderstand basic strategy and the role that math has to play in blackjack.

Insure

Insurance – this is the most common Blackjack side bet and allows you to cover yourself against Blackjack if the dealer has an ace face up. This bet involves half of your original stake and pays. But insurance has a higher house edge than in a normal game of blackjack, making insurance a bad bet. Insurance is paid out at 2 to 1, implying there is a 1 in 3 chance of the dealer getting a blackjack from a face-up ace. But in reality, there are 4 cards out of 13 which could complete that hand, giving odds of 9 to 4 – or 30.8%. Odds against the dealer having a blackjack hand are roughly 9 to 4, meaning that on average, you are likely to lose more than half of the insurance bets that you make in this situation. That’s because the side bet only pays out 2 to 1, so it’s quite a losing proposition to take.

When I’m asked this question I usually just give a simple answer (no), but I sometimes feel inclined to expand on this and explain why. I recently did this with a player who asked the question,and for one reason or another he just couldn’t seem to accept what I was saying. He was absolutely convinced that the insurance bet is always the right way to go.

What Does Insure Bet Mean In Blackjack Betting

What Does Insure Bet Mean In Blackjack

What Does Insure Bet Mean In Blackjack Poker

My initial reaction was to wonder why he asked me the question in the first place, as he was so sure he knew the correct answer himself. My second reaction was to think that I should write a blogpost about taking insurance in blackjack. So here it is! I’ll explain exactly what the insurance bet is for any of you who are not familiar with it, and then use some basic math to explain whyit’s a bad bet.