By Marius Marcus.

If you enjoy playing computer-generated and live dealer blackjack like me on your favorite sites from your preferred Wi-Fi/internet-connected smartphone, tablet, laptop or desktop computer, then you should already be familiar with blackjack insurance.

Some of you may have used this optional side bet and wished you hadn’t. Others may have avoided it at all costs because almost every blackjack player in the world you may have spoken to or almost every blackjack article you have read has said to avoid using the blackjack insurance bet at all costs.

I would have to agree with the seasoned pros who generally advise players not to take insurance when playing blackjack because it’s just too risky. Mathematically speaking, it’s just not worth it. It’s too much of a risk.

Let’s dive straight in to discover more about blackjack insurance, why it’s even a thing, and why most people on this planet, myself included, never use it and think it’s a waste of time.

What is blackjack insurance?

The easiest way for me to describe insurance in blackjack is that it’s an optional side bet you can place in several blackjack variants. It’s a tempting side bet that hardly ever wins you any money, but it can mitigate risks in certain situations. In other words, blackjack insurance can sometimes be helpful.¹⁾EDITOR NOTE: Although the author here is not referring to this, blackjack insurance is the most important card counting play variation for the game of blackjack — and it accounts for over 30% of all the gain a card counter can make with play variations.

The blackjack insurance rules in most formats that come with this optional side bet are the following:

• The dealer’s face-up card must be an Ace (of any suit – which can be worth 1 or 11 points)
• It doesn’t matter what cards you have in your hand
• If you decide to take insurance for that hand, it will set you back an extra 50% of your initial stake for that hand
• Taking insurance still doesn’t guarantee you will win or get any insurance money back
• If you place an insurance bet, and the dealer achieves a natural 21 blackjack, you will receive a guaranteed 2:1 insurance bet payout

If the dealer is showing an Ace, and you think they have a ten-valued-card under it, then you can place your insurance bet. After placing an insurance bet, you then have to hope the dealer has a blackjack.

I’ve used blackjack insurance in my favorite computer-generated and live dealer blackjack titles on my favorite sites.  All which have been recommended to me by the experts on the Johnslots (johnslots.com/en/) review site, as well as free spins on hundreds of slot games if you like those also. I’ve only ever won on a couple of occasions, so I tend to avoid it unless I firmly believe²⁾EDITOR NOTE: Firmly believing in something is not a strategy, unless that belief is based on good analysis.  With a house edge of over 6%, the blackjack insurance bet is one of the worst bets in the casino. the dealer’s next card will turn out to be a 10, Jack, Queen, or King, to give them 21.

A closer look at the numbers

Without going into too much detail, here is a quick look at some of the blackjack insurance numbers for a single-deck. Three of the 52 cards in the deck include your two cards³⁾EDITOR NOTE: The player can have one, two or no ten-valued cards in his hand (e.g, K9, KK, or 78).  It should be obvious that if your hand does not have a ten-valued card in it the odds increase that the dealer has one under his Ace. and the dealer’s face-up card, which are already in play, meaning that 14, 15 or 16 of the remaining 49 unseen cards are worth 10 points.

So, the odds that the dealer will pull a ten-valued card are between 0.286 and 0.326.  If your hand did not include any ten-valued cards, then the odds are 0.326.  Insurance is only profitable if more than one-third of the unseen cards are ten-valued cards.  In a single deck game, if you could see the cards in other player’s hands and they didn’t have any ten-valued cards, the odds would most likely increase beyond 0.333 making the insurance bet profitable.  That is how card counting works for this bet — keeping track of the number of ten-valued cards relative to non-ten-valued cards.

Anyone who decides not to take insurance (when offered) will either lose their bet or win money.  In contrast, if you spend an extra 50% on top of your initial wager for the insurance side bet, and the dealer doesn’t hit a 10, Jack, Queen or King, you will immediately lose your insurance bet but your main bet will play out as normal.

In the long run, the insurance bet is a bad bet unless you have additional information to justify taking it. 

Final thoughts

As you can see from the numbers, blackjack insurance just isn’t worth it. However, that doesn’t mean you should never place the bet. Some players I’ve spoken to seem to have a knack for knowing when to take insurance and have had relative success with this optional side bet, but it’s not enough to convince me to take insurance.

Finally, when you decide to play online blackjack in the real money mode, remember to stick to the fully licensed and regulated blackjack sites controlled by reputable operators with excellent standing in the industry.

The most trusted sites will have hundreds of live dealer/computer-generated blackjacks with high or above-average RTP% payout rates, wide betting ranges, and decent odds. Always learn the rules before playing any blackjack variant, and start at the low stakes tables.

Some of my favorite online blackjack games I can recommend keeping an eye out for are all brought to you by Evolution, Relax, Playtech, Pragmatic Play, GamesGlobal, Play’n GO, OnAir Entertainment, Switch Studios, and Realistic, to name a few to providers.

PHOTO CREDIT: Pixabay.com
PHOTO CREDIT: BJRnet.com

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