Insurance in Blackjack - A Bad Betting Strategy

I’ve heard many blackjack players saying that they take insurance in blackjack for two reasons. One is that they want to be sure they are the winners in case of a blackjack (taking even money) and the other reason to take insurance in blackjack is that they want to avoid losing money on a good hand, like a hand with a total of 20. Both of these two reasons for taking insurance in blackjack are not good choices in a smart strategy for blackjack.

But now by saying this I may make you wonder what a good reason would be for choosing the blackjack insurance bet. To take the blackjack insurance bet, players should only have one reason and that is when you have a chance in 3 that the dealer has a 10 in the hole.

This blackjack betting strategy cannot be used too often because the chance for this situation to come up are not so big. About 7% of the time in a single shoe game depending upon how many 10’s have come out so far. For the rest of the 93% of occurences, blackjack insurance remains a sucker bet no matter what cards you have.

Read again the above sentence and pay attention that I said “no matter what cards you have”. One of the best blackjack playing tips I can give you is to ignore blackjack insurance bets in general. I am giving these blackjack playing tips because most players don't know what cards have come out.

To become a good blackjack player and fully understand basic blackjack strategy you must understand the blackjack insurance bet in its correct light. Regardless of how you may view it, when you take insurance in blackjack you're basically making a separate, completely new wager that the dealer has a 10 in the hole. It's absolutely cut off from the bet you already have riding on your hand.

If the dealer has a 10 in the hole, you win your insurance bet and get paid 2:1 odds on it. If not, you lose your blackjack insurance bet – that's the end of it. Then you go on to play out your hand and one has nothing to do with the other.

You are probably still wondering, what about protecting my hand? But I also wonder, what in the world makes you believe that you can protect your hand?

You will always win or lose the bet on your hand just the same, whether you take insurance in blackjack or not! - Nothing more, nothing less. You should read this sentence a few times to fix it in your mind and get out of your head the foolish idea that you can protect your hand.

Now, let me also explain to you why this is absolutely true. If you've wagered $1000 on your hand and have 20, but the dealer has a 10 underneath, you're going to lose that particular $1000 wager and nothing can change that. But if hedging by betting another $500 that the dealer's got a 10 in the hole seems like a good option. So, your logic is all wrong because each bet gets decided separately, according to its own outcome

Moreover, I'm positive you know that, generally speaking, taking insurance in blackjack is bad blackjack betting strategy. The insurance bet pays only 2-to-1 odds on a bet that is usually 2.25-to-1 against winning. Consequently if you this blackjack betting strategy without knowing that there are lots of extra 10’s in the hole, you'll simply lose money on all your blackjack insurance bets combined. Got that?

Now, knowing that blackjack insurance bets are basically bad, if you had no bet riding on any hand at all, would you want to make an blackjack insurance bet all by itself? Since it would be a losing strategy for blackjack, of course not!

But supposing you have a good hand, what will you do? You must remember that your hand will win or lose all by itself, with or without the insurance blackjack playing strategy. Still, you will without a doubt lose money on all your combined blackjack insurance bets – this one included.

So now, let’s summarize this for the last time. When you hold for example a hand totaling 20 against an Ace up cannot help yourself win your hand, but you can give a monetary edge away by making a bad bet – the blackjack insurance bet. This means that whenever you take insurance in blackjack on your 20 you'll win less combined money than if you just let your 20 ride. Think about it.