Blackjack rules XXIII
The concept of insurance in a blackjack game is very simple and it acts as a side bet in the game where any player willing to take it are offered 2-to-1 winning odds for wagering that the dealer, who has an ace card as his face up card, has a ten-valued card as his second card that is a hole card.
It can be seen that in a game played with a single card deck, there are 16 possible ten-valued cards. if it is taken that a player has not seen any card in that deck, including the cards he himself has been dealt, the possibility of finding one ten-valued card among the 51 cards remaining (since the dealer already has an ace card) is 16 out of 51 or 3.13725%. Interestingly, the insurance wager can be a break-even bet for a player if the dealer’s hole card turns out to be a ten-valued card one out of three times, that is, 33.33% but the possibility is only 3.13725%.
Now if the player has a blackjack hand and the dealer has the ace card as his up card, instead of insurance the dealer offers even money to the player. The player has the choice of accepting the offer and get immediately a payout of 1:1 without depending on whether the dealer’s hand turns out to be a blackjack or not. It can be seen that accepting even money guarantees the same payout to the player as accepting the insurance wager. For, if the dealer doesn’t have a blackjack, the player would lose his 2:1 insurance bet but win 3:2 original bet for having a natural hand. Again, if the dealer has a blackjack, the original wager is tied or pushed, but the player wins 2:1 for the insurance.
Similar to insurance bet, even money situation is not a beneficial proposition for any player who does not engage in card counting which only can tell him if the card deck has a high number of possible ten-valued card or not.
