The Insurance bet in Blackjack is a non obligatory side bet that is offered to players should the Dealer be showing an Ace on his up facing card.
Should you wish to place an Insurance side bet then you will have to wait until the Dealer comes to your hand, they will then offer you the Insurance bet.
You will have to place a bet that is exactly half of your initial wager, and you are simply betting that the Dealer has a Blackjack.
If you have taken the Insurance bet and the Dealer does indeed have a Blackjack then your side bet will be paid out at odds of 2-1
The Insurance bet may seem, at first glance, a reasonable bet, after all you get paid out at odds of 2-1 and as the Dealer already has an Ace surely the odds are stacked in your favor?
Well alas not, the Insurance bet is one of the worst bets you can make, and when offered to you the best strategy is to decline the bet.
By always taking the Insurance bet you will have a dramatic effect on the house edge and will lower your overall payout percentages.
Most Blackjack games offer the Insurance bet, but one game that doesn’t is Super Fun 21. The strategy card for this game can be found on the right hand side of this webpage.
Super Fun 21 doesn’t need to offer players Insurance, as, thanks to the games very liberal rules a Players Blackjack will always beat a Dealers Blackjack.
One downside of this rule however is that a Player Blackjack only pays Even Money.
If you are playing Blackjack and the Dealer offers you Insurance then never, ever take it, the long term correct strategy dictates you will lose this bet more times than you will win it.
You can prove this yourself, sign up for a guest account over at Royal Vegas Casino and play Blackjack for free, and make a note of how many times the Dealer gets a Blackjack when showing an Ace.
So to conclude no matter how bad your hand may look never be tempted to take the Insurance side bet, we can not tell you this enough times, if you take the Insurance bet you are literally throwing your hard earned gaming budget away.