Blackjack Insurance and Even Money: How the Side Bet Pays

The offer is made only when the first dealer card is an ace. Each player at the table then has the right to place an insurance bet on the insurance line of the layout. The stake may not be more than half the original bet, except that a player may round up to the next chip when half the bet cannot be made from the chips in play. Placing the bet is optional and it is placed before the dealer looks at the hole card, or before the card goes into the reader where one is used.

Then the hole card is checked. If it is a king, queen, jack or ten, the dealer has blackjack, the insurance bet wins and it is paid at 2 to 1. If it is an ace or any card from two to nine, the insurance bet loses at once. The dealer collects it before any further card is drawn, and the main hand plays on as usual.

The insurance bet and the main bet are separate wagers with separate results. The New Jersey and Massachusetts rules say so plainly for surrender too: if you have made an insurance wager and then surrender, each wager is settled on its own and one has no bearing on the other. Insurance does not cover the optional additional wagers either, and the rules state that an insurance wager applies to none of them.

Here is a round with a main bet of 100 and an insurance bet of 50:

The first row is the case insurance is named for: a lost main hand is covered by the insurance win, and you leave the round even. Only the first row does that, and the second row is the price.

Even money is the offer made to a player who has a blackjack when the dealer shows an ace. The dealer offers to pay the blackjack at once at 1 to 1, in place of an insurance bet. In New Jersey the option is worded exactly that way: the casino may, before any more cards are dealt, offer to pay the player's blackjack at odds of 1 to 1 instead of making an insurance wager. Massachusetts words it the same way, and adds that a casino that chooses to pay a blackjack at 6 to 5 cannot offer it.

Neither state makes the casino offer it. It is an option the casino may allow, and it must give notice to players if it does.

Take a blackjack with a bet of 100. If you decline both, you get 150 when the dealer does not have blackjack, since 3 to 2 pays 150, and nothing when the dealer has it, because the two blackjacks push. If you take even money, you are paid 100 immediately, before the hole card is looked at.

Insure a blackjack for 50 on a 100 bet and follow the two branches. If the dealer has blackjack, your hand pushes for 0 and the insurance pays 100, so you are up 100. If the dealer does not, your blackjack pays 150 and the insurance loses 50, so you are up 100. You finish 100 ahead in both cases. That is exactly what even money pays.

So for a player with a blackjack the two offers are the same decision written in different words. The settler above shows it: choose Blackjack, then compare Insurance and Even money and watch the totals match.

The name explains the appeal. It removes the uncertainty of a 150 win or a push and replaces it with a sure 100. What it does to the average is a separate question, and it is the same question as whether insurance is worth taking in general, which is where the next section goes.

The regulator wording does not describe insurance as a hedge on your hand. It describes a bet that wins if the dealer's second card is a king, queen, jack or ten, and loses if it is an ace or a two through nine. Your own cards do not enter the definition, and neither does the dealer's total afterwards. It is a wager on one unknown card.

A bet that pays 2 to 1 breaks even when it wins one time in three. So the question is how often the hole card is a ten-value card when the dealer shows an ace. The odds data gives the chance that the dealer finishes with a natural when the up card is an ace: 30.87% (Chance that the dealer finishes with a natural blackjack when the up card is an ace. Rules: 6 decks, the dealer stands on soft 17, and the dealer checks for blackjack with a hole card. Worked out exactly by following every possible order of cards from a full shoe, removing each card as it is drawn. The dealer's hole card counts as the first card the dealer draws, so a natural is one of the outcomes.) at six decks, 31.07% (Chance that the dealer finishes with a natural blackjack when the up card is an ace. Rules: 2 decks, the dealer stands on soft 17, and the dealer checks for blackjack with a hole card. Worked out exactly by following every possible order of cards from a full shoe, removing each card as it is drawn. The dealer's hole card counts as the first card the dealer draws, so a natural is one of the outcomes.) at two decks and 31.37% (Chance that the dealer finishes with a natural blackjack when the up card is an ace. Rules: a single deck, the dealer stands on soft 17, and the dealer checks for blackjack with a hole card. Worked out exactly by following every possible order of cards from a full shoe, removing each card as it is drawn. The dealer's hole card counts as the first card the dealer draws, so a natural is one of the outcomes.) at a single deck. Each figure is a bit under one in three, so a 2 to 1 payout is a bit short of fair under those rules, and the shortfall is what the bet costs.

The figure comes with a limit. It is measured from a full shoe under the rules named in the odds data, and it describes the deal, not any one shoe. A shoe that has run rich in ten-value cards changes the chance for the next hand, and this site publishes nothing for a partly dealt shoe. It also publishes no house edge for the insurance bet itself, and no table in the house edge grid or the variant pages includes it. Every published house edge assumes the player never takes insurance or even money. The idea that insurance is "correct" for some hands is therefore not a claim this site supports or refutes with a number.

The core is the same in the documents read for this site: half the bet, 2 to 1, placed before the hole card is looked at. Around that core, details differ.

• Standard blackjack (New Jersey and Massachusetts). The stake is at most half the original bet, and rounded up only when chips do not divide. The bet wins on a hole card of king, queen, jack or ten. Each player on a shared box has the right to insure whether or not the others on the box do.
• Washington State. The player may place the bet before the dealer looks at the hole card, at half of the opening wager, and the card room's own internal controls may deviate from the general procedure.
• Blackjack Switch (New Jersey). A player may insure either hand or both. Bets are placed after the first four cards are dealt to the players and before any switch is offered, and a winning bet pays 2 to 1.
• Spanish 21 (Massachusetts). The deck has no ten spots, so the bet wins only on a king, queen or jack as the second dealer card. The Spanish 21 page covers the game.
• Pontoon (Australian Capital Territory). The insurance wager protects against the dealer achieving a Pontoon, up to half the original wager, and pays 2 to 1. See the Pontoon page.

Two other rules matter in practice. Some games remove insurance altogether, and the regulator text says so where it applies. And where a table pays blackjack at 6 to 5, the Massachusetts rules withdraw the even-money option, a point taken up on the 6 to 5 vs 3 to 2 page.

Three limits are worth stating plainly, because insurance attracts confident claims.

First, no figure here measures insurance. The rule grid states that the player never takes insurance or even money. The variant pages use the same assumption, and so do the strategy charts behind them.

Second, the chance of a ten in the hole depends on the cards left in the shoe. The odds figures describe a fresh shoe. They do not describe what happens to a player who counts cards, because counting is outside what is measured.

Third, the payout is the payout in the rules of the table you are at. Regulators set the 2 to 1 payout for standard blackjack in the documents cited below, and a card room may deviate from the general procedure if its internal controls document it. Read the layout before you rely on any figure from a page.