What’s the difference between blackjack and baccarat—two popular table games in our online casino? In the former, you choose how to play your hand; in the latter, you place a random bet on one of three spots, and cross your fingers, hoping the cards fall your way.
And it’s not just with baccarat. Strategy and decision-making are what separate blackjack from most other casino games. This is a game players have gravitated to for centuries because it lets you take control of your hand once the cards are dealt. Every move you make has an impact on the outcome when you face off with the dealer to see who has the better hand.
A little research goes a long way in building a solid blackjack foundation. Understanding how each move works and when to utilize them is critical if you want to minimize the house edge on a consistent basis. In our educational blackjack series, we cover many different aspects of the game, such as splitting pairs, making side bets, learning basic strategy, and in this one, understanding the Insurance bet.
Getting Insurance in blackjack is an option in most variants and it works in your favour when the dealer lands a Blackjack. But should you go for it every time? What’s the probability of winning the bet? After reading this guide, you’ll know the answers to these questions and be well-equipped to win when you play blackjack in Canada at Bodog Casino—Canada’s premiere online gambling site.
Definition of the Insurance Bet
In blackjack, there’s nothing worse than seeing the dealer land a natural, aka Blackjack. For those of you who are new to the game, Blackjack is the term for a perfect score of 21 with just two cards. It’s an instant win. So, unless you also have Blackjack in the above scenario, chances are you’ve lost your bet and have to hope for better luck next round.
That’s where the Insurance bet comes in. As the name suggests, it protects your bet in the event of the dealer having Blackjack, ensuring you at least get back your money.
In our online game, any time the dealer has an Ace as an up-card, you’ll see the Insurance option pop up on screen before you. The bet costs half of your original wager and pays 2-to-1 if the dealer has Blackjack, which means he must have a 10-value card face down. If the dealer does have Blackjack, you win a 2-to-1 payout based on your Insurance bet but lose your main bet. Since the Insurance bet is always half of the original bet, you basically get your money back. Better than losing, right?
The bet is completely optional. Many people never use it, some have never heard of it, while others make sure it’s available before launching a session of blackjack. For you to carry on down your road to mastering blackjack, it’s important to know how it works and what the probability of winning is.
How Does Insurance Work in Blackjack?
Now that you know what an Insurance bet is, it’s time to try it out in real time and see how it feels. Launch a session of Blackjack, or any variant you want, to see it in action on screen. On the table, you’ll almost always see “Insurance Pays 2:1,” which is a quick and clear way to show that the game offers it with the standard payouts. If you don’t see that message, check the game rules to make sure that Insurance is an option in the version you’re trying to play.
Insurance pops up only when the dealer has an Ace as an up-card, and since there are just four Aces in a deck, it could be a while before you come across it. That’s why Practice Play mode comes in handy if you’re looking to test it out. You can play over and over again without any cost to your bankroll. When the dealer does get that Ace, a banner appears that says:
INSURANCE
Tap shield to insure a hand
PAYS 2 TO 1
If you want the side bet, tap the shield as instructed; a second wager half the size of your original is put on the table to pay for the secondary bet. Click the “Accept” button, or if you change your mind, re-click the shield to go back. If you don’t want the Insurance side bet, click the “No Insurance” button and you’ll return to the round.
If you went ahead and accepted the Insurance bet, the dealer would proceed to peek at the hole card, only revealing it if it is indeed a 10-value card for automatic Blackjack. If it’s not, you lose the Insurance bet, and the game carries on. You would play out your hand, and then the dealer would follow suit. As long as no one busts, both hands would be compared to see who’s the winner.
Should You Take Insurance?
Now that we know how Insurance works in blackjack, we need to answer the question: should you take Insurance? To truly know if it’s worth taking, we need to look at the probability of winning the bet and the house edge it carries.
We’ll use our six-deck Blackjack as the test sample in this illustration. With six decks, you’re looking at 312 playing cards. We’ll deduct 1 card from the 312 (making it 311), since there’s an Ace removed as the dealer’s up-card. For every deck, there are 16 winning cards for the Insurance bet (Four 10-value cards for each suit: hearts, diamonds, spades and clubs). When you multiply 16 by six decks, you get 96 winning cards out of the 311 total cards in the shoe. That means there are 215 losing cards in the six-deck shoe.
The payout for Insurance is 2-to-1, and the loss is -1, since you lose your Insurance bet. If you multiply 2 by 96/311, you get just over 61%—that’s the win rate for the bet. The lose rate is -1 multiplied by 215/311 for just over 69%. The difference between the two is the house edge, which is about 7.5%.
Blackjack is known for having a low house edge when you play your cards right, but that doesn’t include the Insurance bet, which has a house edge about six times higher than the game’s primary house edge.
So, then why do we see blackjack players go for it time and time again? Typically, when players go for Insurance in a brick-and-mortar establishment, it’s sometimes because they’re keeping track of how many 10-value cards are in the shoe. Or, they’re doing it because they play for fun and entertainment purposes and aren’t overly concerned about house edge.
The average blackjack player who is keen to minimize house edge and play all of their hands optimally should avoid the Insurance side bet as part of their overall strategy.
Is Insurance Worth It?
We’ve crunched the numbers and come up with the house edge for the Insurance bet. You may now be wondering: is Insurance worth it? Some folks still enjoy betting on Insurance even with this information available—and that’s okay. There are a few scenarios where taking the Insurance bet could make sense.
For one, when a blackjack player puts down a bet that’s bigger than they wanted, only to see the dealer flip over an Ace, it can be daunting for the player. That player may choose to take Insurance simply to protect them from losing their bet.
Another scenario is when seasoned blackjack players take Insurance when playing at land-based casinos. There’s more than meets the eye here; these players are likely keeping track of a running count of the shoe and are confident that it’s rich with 10-value cards, which flips the odds in their direction.
Keep in mind, though, card counting in blackjack isn’t possible online or at live tables with automated shufflers that mix the shoe after every round, and it’s getting harder and harder to find tables without those popular machines.
If you’re here with the goal of playing optimal strategy in blackjack and want to know if Insurance will help you get there, then the answer is no. Betting on Insurance when the dealer has an Ace as an up-card will not help you minimize the game’s house edge; it will have the opposite effect. The dealer simply won’t have a 10-value card frequently enough to make the 2-to-1 payout worth chasing.
That being said, many casino players enjoy following hunches and gut instincts when playing games. It’s part of what makes the play dynamic and fun. If optimization sounds robotic or uninspiring, feel free to indulge those hunches when they come along and see if they come true on the blackjack tables. It could just be your lucky day.
Insurance in Blackjack at Bodog
You’ve read so much about Insurance in blackjack, it’d be a shame not to see it in action. For a chance to try out the side bet, visit the Blackjack Games section of our online casino, or better yet, go to the Live Dealer blackjack tables, which have a wide range of table limits and a list of dealers in action.
Regardless of which option you pick, you’ll find Insurance as a standard option in all of our blackjack games, including Classic Blackjack, European Blackjack and even the spin-offs like Zappit Blackjack. They all pay 2-to-1 if the dealer has Blackjack and require you to put down a bet that’s half the size of your original bet.
Practice Play mode can give you a risk-free trial with this feature, making it possible to play any variant you want and test out the Insurance bet without staking money from your bankroll. In our newer suite of blackjack games, which includes Blackjack, Double Deck Blackjack and Single Deck Blackjack—all mobile optimized, the Insurance bet pops up as a “shield” symbol overtop of your hand, with a banner that asks you to tap the shield if you want to insure the hand.
In the more retro Classic Blackjack games, including Classic Blackjack and Classic Single Deck Blackjack, Insurance pops up as a banner with two buttons: Yes and No. Pick the one you want and the software will do the rest.
Whether you’re playing Classic or new blackjack variants, you can count on the fact that you’ll be prompted with the Insurance offer every time the dealer has an Ace showing as their up-card. By taking it, a bet that’s 50% of your original bet is added as a stake for the Insurance side bet automatically.
At that point, the dealer peeks at his hand for Blackjack and settles the side wager if he has a 10-value card. If he doesn’t have Blackjack, however, you lose the Insurance bet but can still win the round. You’ll proceed to play out your hand, followed by the dealer, and eventually compare scores to see who’s higher.
Now that you know everything there is to know about Insurance in blackjack, you’ll have to decide if it’s a move you want to incorporate into your blackjack betting tool kit. Depending on the type of blackjack player you are, you may go for it anyway, you may avoid it at all costs, or you may sprinkle it in judiciously like many players do with other higher house edge side bets available in table games. At least you’ll be making an informed decision, which sets you apart from the average recreational casino player. Good luck with the game, enjoy the newfound knowledge, and we’ll touch back with more blackjack strategy guides at Bodog Casino.