1. What Does Taking Insurance Mean In Blackjack
2. Blackjack 3 To 2
3. In Blackjack What Does Insurance Mean Like
4. In Blackjack What Does Insurance Mean

One seemingly good bet to beginning blackjack players is taking insurance. And a major reason why beginning players are fooled into thinking insurance is a good idea is because dealers ask players beforehand if they want insurance when the opportunity arises. However, this is a very poor wager, and we’ll get into the specifics of why after explaining more about this bet.

Aug 10, 2018 Blackjack insurance is a term that confuses a lot of people, especially novice players. What is even more confusing is knowing when to buy blackjack insurance. Experts usually say purchasing it is a bad bet and should be avoided at all costs, but that is not always the case. Sep 08, 2015 It is a side bet in Blackjack when the dealer has an Ace showing to predict if the dealer has a Blackjack (Natural) or not. This is the actual thing you're betting for.

Buying insurance is a side bet which is available when the dealer's up card is an Ace. When you are buying insurance you placing a bet that the dealer has an face card in the hole, giving the dealer a Blackjack. The bet is equal to half your initial wager. Insurance is basically a bet that states you think the Dealer has blackjack. It is usually a bad idea to take insurance unless you count cards and are sure the Dealer has blackjack. 3) You don't have blackjack but the dealer does. You win $10 on insurance and lose your original $10 bet, a push. 4) Neither you nor the dealer have blackjack and you win the hand. You lose the $5 insurance but win $10 on your original bet, $5 net gain. 5) Neither you nor the dealer have blackjack.

How Insurance Bets Work

The opportunity for insurance wagers arise when the dealer draws a face-up ace; at this point, the dealer will go around the table and ask everybody if they want to take insurance. The insurance is in case the dealer receives a blackjack, and you put out half of your original bet as the insurance. Assuming the dealer does have a blackjack, you win 2-1 on your insurance wager.

To illustrate how this works, let’s say that you make a $10 bet, and the dealer shows an ace. You then take the offered insurance bet by laying another $5 out on the table. The dealer turns over his second card, which is a king, thus giving him a blackjack. In this event, you receive win $5 on your insurance bet ($10 total), but lose $10 since the dealer had a blackjack. So basically, your overall bet was a push, and this doesn’t seem like such a bad deal so far.

Now, let us assume that the dealer didn’t have a natural blackjack; in this instance, you automatically lose the $5 insurance wager; however, you still have a chance to win the original $10 wager if your hand beats the dealer’s.

What Does Taking Insurance Mean In Blackjack

Why the Insurance Bet is Bad

Consult any source of blackjack strategy and they’ll tell you that insurance is bad. And the first thing you have to understand with this concept is exactly what insurance entails. Most players mistakenly assume that insurance is meant to protect their hand in the event that the dealer has a blackjack. But the reality is that insurance is merely a wager on the dealer having a natural blackjack.

The main number you want to concentrate on here is 9:4 odds – or rather, the odds against the dealer having a blackjack when they’re showing an ace is 9:4. To break this down further, let’s say you make $5 insurance bets 130 times; based on the 9:4 odds, you’d win your bet 40 times for $400 in total winnings ($10 total earnings X 40 bets). On the other hand, you’d lose 90 of these bets for $450 in total losses ($5 total losses X 90 bets). As you can see, this leaves you $50 in the hole, thus making it a bad bet overall.

Basic Strategy

Playing a basic strategy in blackjack requires no card counting, although it does require some memorization. A basic strategy involves:

• looking at the cards you hold
• looking at the dealer's face-up card
• determining the odds that either you or the dealer will bust

Before we get into the details of a basic strategy, it's important that we know the odds. Blackjack, like all casino games, is set up so that the house has an advantage. If you were to play exactly like the dealer (stand on 17 or higher, hit on 16 or less), it stands to reason that there would be no house advantage. Both you and the dealer would win an equal number of times. However, the dealer plays after the players, which means that when you and the dealer both bust, you still lose. Taking into account the payout bonus for getting a blackjack, it works out to roughly a 5.5 percent house advantage. That means that if you were to play blackjack for a very long time (eight hours a day for several years), you would end up losing about 5.5 percent of your money.

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So how does a basic strategy work? Entire books have been devoted to the subject, but all basic strategies revolve around the fact that there are more cards worth 10 in the deck than any other value -- 16 out of 52 cards are worth 10.

Knowing this, a basic-strategy player assumes that the dealer's second card will be worth 10, even though many times it isn't. Based on the dealer's 'up card' (the card the players know the value of), the dealer's hand can be placed into two categories:

• hands that are likely to bust the dealer
• hands that are likely to give the dealer a good hand

If the dealer is showing a Two, Three, Four, Five, or Six, he is more likely to bust. The Five and the Six are the cards most likely to lead to a busted hand for the dealer. In this case, the player doesn't have to take big risks to try to get closer to 21 -- he simply needs to avoid busting himself.

Blackjack 3 To 2

If the dealer is showing a Seven or anything higher, there is a significant chance he will make a good hand of 18, 19, 20, or 21. If the player has a hand with a lower value than 18, he might want to be more aggressive and take another card, risking a bust to try to get a better hand.

So, getting more specific, here are four easy rules on when to hit and when to stand:

• If your hand is 11 or less, always hit. You can't possibly bust, so the extra card will only help your hand.
• If your hand is 17 or greater, and the dealer is not showing a Seven or higher, always stand. The risk of busting if you hit is very high.
• If your hand is 12 to 16, and the dealer is showing an up card likely to bust (see illustration above), always stand. Although this is a weak hand, it will still win if the dealer busts. Exception - If the dealer has a Two or a Three showing, hit if you have 12.
• If your hand is 12 to 16, and the dealer has a Seven or higher showing, always hit. The dealer is far more likely to get a better hand than yours unless you can improve it. There's a risk of busting, but in this case you have to take that risk.

In Blackjack What Does Insurance Mean Like

Exception: If you're holding a soft Ace, you can be more aggressive than these rules indicate. You might even hit on a 17, depending on what the dealer is holding.

In Blackjack What Does Insurance Mean

Although basic blackjack strategies can get infinitely more complex, those four rules are the core of most of the strategies in use today.

If you're wondering what card counting is, and if you're even allowed to do it, we'll explain it all in the next section.