What is the Blackjack Insurance Bet?
Insurance bets are side bets you must learn if you want to forge ahead on your quest to make money playing blackjack online and winning. This could be confusing, especially when you are a newbie, as dealers quickly offer players this bet. In this article, we will be looking at what blackjack Insurance bets are, the amount of money involved, why dealers offer this bet, and other tips involved in you making the most of this offer.
What Does Blackjack Insurance Means and Why Does Casinos Offer It?
What is the Blackjack Insurance Bet?
You are dealt two cards at the start of every blackjack game played online, while the dealer is also dealt two cards but only shows one of them to the other players. When the dealer has an ace-up card, they present an insurance bet. Before any of the players at the table begin their gameplay, the dealer makes this side bet available.
An insurance bet is where players have to bet that the dealer’s face-down card, also known as a hole card, is a 10-value card. If the player takes the bet and it is revealed that the dealer has a 10-value card, the player wins the insurance bet. Conversely, the player loses the bet if the hole card is not 10-value.
Amount You Can Wager and the Payoff
Players must bet an insurance amount equal to one-half of the original bet they placed on their hand to take an insurance bet. How much you are required to bet varies from one casino to the other. This can be either higher than one-half or lower.
For example, if a player bets $100 on a hand and is offered insurance, the player has to place an additional $50 if he wants to take the insurance bet. If the player wins the insurance bet, he is paid at 2-1 odds. The player then wins $100. However, although the player wins the insurance bet, he would lose the original bet placed on the hand.
If the player who wins the insurance bet also has a blackjack, then the wager is a push, which means he ties with the dealer and has no winning or losing hand. If, on the other hand, the player loses the insurance bet, he will forfeit the amount bet and then rely on his original hand to see if he beats the dealer.
Why Do Casinos Offer the Insurance Bet?
In the logical sense, insurance bets are a way to offer players a chance to guard themselves against the imminent danger of losing their hand to a dealer’s blackjack if it turns out to be a blackjack. This way, the player will win at least something and not be at a total disadvantage. However, there are some hidden disadvantages.
Players remember that insurance bets are only side bets, and the outcome of that bet has no bearing on your winning or losing the original bet.
If you win the insurance bet, you will most likely lose your original bet. If you lose the insurance bet, on the other hand, there is no guarantee that you will beat the dealer’s hand when revealed. This way, you are losing money on both ends, which would have been less, had you not taken the side bet. Either way, insurance bets are losing bets, and in the end, you are not insuring much. So this would be an intelligent play, never to take insurance bets.
What About Insuring a Good Hand?
A solid argument will be that players can take an insurance bet with a good hand, like a hard 20 or a blackjack. That if they lose the insurance bet, they still have a good chance of winning against the casino’s hand. This is even more of a bad idea.
This is because the ratio of non-10-value cards to 10-value cards in the remaining cards is now 35 to 14. Meaning you will end up at a $7 loss of insurance bets out of $49 for a 14.5% house edge. This makes it a basic idea.
Final Thoughts
One thing is clear whether you have a good or a bad hand: the disadvantages of taking an insurance bet far outweigh the advantages. However, understanding what an insurance bet is and how well you think you can handle it is a step further in being great at playing blackjack online. Ready to insure your hand? Visit BetUS online casino.
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