Nowadays there are many different types of insurance policies that you can buy - there are life insurance policies, car insurance policies, travel insurance, health insurance, ownership insurance and liability insurance. You can sometimes even insure yourself if you take a seat at a blackjack table in a casino.
The latter is a kind of proposition bet at Blackjack that has been the subject of hot discussions for decades. Blackjackexperts recommend that you never place this bet. Let's take a closer look at what an insurance policy at Blackjack is, how it is identical to the payment of "Even-Money" at BlackJack And why you should both avoid them if you are a basic strategy player.
How does insurance work at Blackjack?
Blackjack players are offered insurance when the dealer's open card is a bait. This is an optional proposition deployment that is treated separately from your original commitment. When you buy insurance, you practically bet that the dealer has a card with a value of ten next to his bait (or will receive it at European BJ) for a blackjack.
You can insure each hand with two cards against Blackjack from a dealer by using half of your original bet. The sheets for the insured bets are placed within the semicircular line that runs over the table and there is "Insurance pays 2 against 1".
There are two possible scenarios when you take out insurance. If the dealer does indeed have a blackjack and you do not, you will lose your original bet, but you win the insurance deployment with casino channels of 2 to 1, that is, you end break-even for this round. If the dealer does not have a card with a value of ten, you lose the insurance insert and the game on your hand will continue.
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An example
Let's see how buying an insurance works with a concrete example. We assume that you have deployed $ 20 on your original hand, which is not a natural hand (blackjack), and the dealer shows an ace. You want to protect yourself against a possible blackjack from the dealer and decide to accept insurance, so you place an extra bet of $ 10 on top of the initial $ 20.
The dealer peeks under his closed card and it appears that it is indeed a card with a value of ten that gives him a blackjack. You lose the first $ 20 that you have deployed on your hand, but you win another $ 20 of the insurance deployment. You are break-even, that is, you win or lose no money in this round. If you had not insured your hand, you would lose $ 20.
Is it worthwhile to insure?
Some players argue for insurance and the starting point of their argument is that you lose the full initial deployment if you do not insure your hand, in contrast to break-even when you accept insurance.
This "rationalization" is nonsense. Casino operators want you to believe they are doing you a favor by insuring you against a possible dealer Blackjack. Some dealers are even instructed to advise players on accepting insurance.
The truth is that you do not assure anything. What you do with this side deployment is betting that the dealer has a card with a value of ten in the hole. This has nothing to do with increasing the opportunities of your original bet, but it has everything to do with lowering your expected long -term value and this is why.
Suppose you play a game with six card games where the ratio between cards with a value of non-ten and cards with a value of 216 to 96 is. The six card games have just been shaken again, the dealer exposes a bait at the start of the first round. Provided that we do not take into account the composition of your starting total with two cards, the ratio between cards with a value of no ten and cards with a value of ten now is 215 to 96 because one of the aces has already left the shoe.
Therefore, if you insure your hand 311 times for a dollar, you will suffer a loss of $ 215, because the hole card of the dealer will not be a ten value 215 times. The other 96 times the dealer has a card with a value of ten in the hole, so you win 96 * $ 2 for a total of $ 192. It follows that $ 311 in insurance sets is equal to a net loss of $ 215 - $ 192 = $ 23.
Insurance therefore brings you to a huge disadvantage of (-$ 23 / $ 311) * 100 = -7.39%, which means that the house has an advantage of almost 7.40% with this side bet. No wonder dealers recommend customers to insure their hands!
Extra info about insurance
What if we introduce your two starting cards in the comparison? Imagine that your hand consists of two cards without ten value, such as 6 and 2 for a total of 8, while the dealer's Upcard is a bait at the start of the first round. You play again at a blackjack table with six decks, meaning that the ratio between cards with a value of no ten and cards with a value of ten in the shoe is 213 to 96, because there are already three cards with a non-ten value removed (that of the dealer bait, a 6 and a 2).
The shoe now contains only 309 cards, so you lose 213 out of 309 times and win $ 2 * 96 for a win of $ 192. So $ 309 worth $ 1 insurance sets results in a net loss of $ 213 - $ 192 = $ 21. As a result, you are to the disadvantage of ( - $ 21 / $ 309) * 100 = -6.80%.
There is a small improvement in the opportunities, but you still lose a lot of money by buying insurance. Some people claim that you only have to insure top hands (such as a hard 20) and the insurance must refuse if you have bad hands, such as a hard 12 or hard 13. Let's let this argument rest with our latest example where some of the Picture cards are removed from the shoe at the first round.
The start hand is a few women against the bait of the dealer. Of the 309 cards that are left, you have 94 cards with a value of ten and 215 cards with a value without ten because one of the aces has been removed. If you take out insurance for $ 1309 under these circumstances, you lose $ 215 and win 94 * $ 2 = $ 188. The net loss that you suffer after placing $ 309 at $ 1 insurance sets on a 20 stands at $ 27.
This makes you disadvantage ( - $ 27 / $ 309) * 100 = -8.73%. It appears that insuring "good" hands is more expensive than insuring "bad", because some of the cards with a value of ten that can help the dealer can help make a blackjack. No matter how we turn around it, insurance is a bad gamble and must therefore be completely avoided
Are there exceptions to the rule?
If you take the time to accurately view a basic strategie card, you will certainly notice one strange phenomenon. The right games for splitting, buying, fitting, double And vomiting at all possible dealer cards are displayed while, strangely enough, insurance is absent on the map. Why is that?
The reason is simple: players with a basic strategy should never take out insurance, because it is a negative expectation in the long term. The chance of winning with this bet is smaller than the chance that the casino will pay you. There are of course exceptions to all rules, also these because the insurance insert is susceptible to discount playing techniques such as counting cards.
Card counters keep the ratio of cards with a value of ten and cards with a different value than ten that stay in the shoe or card game. This gives them the opportunity to identify the situations in which insurance becomes a bet with positive expectations. If the remaining cards with a value of ten are larger than the cards with a value without ten, there is a greater chance that a card counter will insure their hands against Blackjack from a dealer.
The "Even Money" option
The payment of Even Money is offered when players get a blackjack and the dealer exposes a bait. Most inexperienced gamblers get confused when this happens and often ask other customers or the dealer for advice. Do they have to accept the payment of equally money or should they refuse? And of course the dealer would always recommend them to accept money, because this is favorable for the bank in the long run.
This is bad advice that you should never follow. Here is the thing- the payment of the Even Money is essentially the same as insurance- with a few small differences. The first difference is that this is only a possible option if the player has a blackjack and the dealer shows a bait.
If you just accept Money, the dealer will also pay you before he or she peeks under his or her hole card for a blackjack. This is in contrast to winning insurance insets that are paid after the Peek.
You will therefore receive your bet 1 time instead of 1.5 times. Since the dealer only draws a blackjack 4 of 13 times if he has a bait open, this is a disadvantage for the player of around 7.69%.
As an example we use a bet of 10 euros. If you accept the Even Money, you will get 10 euros paid out. This is 130 euros over 13 hands. If you take the 1.5 times payment by not accepting Moneyy, you will get an average of 9 x 15 euros and 4 times nothing. 9 x 15 = 135. You can see that this means 5 euros more profit. The higher the deployment, the greater the difference. Seen in thousands of games blackjack, it becomes clear how much money this can matter.