When it comes to insurance for our cars and homes we sometimes feel as if we are being ripped off. We tend to groan and take a grudging feeling towards it. We have to pay and pay and pay.
And yet a good many blackjack players do not have an issue insuring their hands in a game of blackjack.
As a player you will come across insurance no matter where you play blackjack. If you play blackjack online you will find it. If you play in a brick and mortar casino you will still find it. It is the casinos’ one way of getting some extra money no matter where you choose to play.
Insurance is presented to players when the dealer’s up card is an Ace. This is because an Ace is necessary to have a natural blackjack, and it is not as common in the deck as the cards worth 10 are.
The way that insurance works is that at the cost of half of your wager you can protect your wager in case the dealer does have a natural blackjack. Insurance pays 2-1. So on a $10 wager insurance is $5. If the player were to lose then he would lose his $10 wager, but receive $10 because of his insurance.
However insurance is more deceptive than that.
Insurance is really a side bet on whether the hole card is worth 10 or not. An insurance bet has nothing to do with the outcome of the actual game, only with what the hole card is. It is possible to lose your insurance and still win the round.
And because you can lose your insurance and still win the round you are going to lose more money over time. This is because even thought the casino is paying money, it is not as much because they are still taking money from you.
This is why in all forms of blackjack—online blackjack included—insurance is a bad play. Hang on to your money and enjoy the thrill of gambling that comes from playing blackjack…without insurance.
