Before you get all excited, this is not a sale. If you are in a blackjack game where you are wagering $20 per hand and an insurance wager costs you $10, this does not mean that for a limited time insurance will only cost $3. Sorry, if casinos are going to try to hang on to their house edge they are not about to put a sale on insurance.
When I say 70% off of insurance I am talking about the odds of a dealer’s hole card being worth ten when the dealer has an Ace showing.
Start with 100%, then you look at the probability of that hole card being worth ten. There are thirteen cards in a suit and only four are worth ten. That gives you a roughly 30% chance that the hole card is worth ten. This also means that there is a 70% chance that the hole card will not be worth ten.
So take that 100% chance that a blackjack player has of hoping that insurance will work out in his favor and that he will at least receive that payout if the dealer does in fact have a natural blackjack, and subtract 70%. This gives you a roughly 30% chance of making anything off of an insurance wager.
Now if you knew that you had less than a 50% chance of a bet working out in your favor, would you wager on it? If you knew that a lizard almost always ran to the left, would you wager on it running to the right? No, you would not because you are smart enough to know that the odds are on the lizard running to the left, and that wagering on it running right would be most unwise.
So why would you wager on insurance when you know that the odds are against you? The house likes and encourages blackjack players to feel as if the dealer showing an Ace is more threatening than it really is. They are hoping that you will take the insurance wager even though there is only a 30% chance of you making anything off it.
While insurance will never have an actual discount, the blackjack odds on insurance panning out for a blackjack play are always 70%. While supplies last.