Blackjack is one of the most popular casino games ever, and its popularity stems from the fact that it is super entertaining to play and has a low house edge. The entertaining part is quite clear, as players usually love spending time playing this game.
When it comes to the house edge, it gets a bit more complicated, as this concept is not always familiar to the players who are new to blackjack. Therefore, before we proceed to talk about insurance bets, we need to discuss the concept of “house edge.”
When you read articles that review blackjack, you usually come across the term house edge, and it is nothing more than the approximate amount of money that the house (casino) earns from games. For example, slots have a house edge of approximately 2% to as much as 20-30% (don’t play the latter). However, blackjack has a house edge of only 1.5%, and if you apply the right strategy, you can lower it even further to 0.5%. In other words, gains from this game are usually very low for casinos.
In order to have a larger house edge, casinos decided to offer the so-called “insurance” bets, which are side bets that are treated separately from the main wager. The idea of this bet is to buy yourself an “insurance” if the dealer has a blackjack. This bet pays 2:1, meaning that you will receive $2 for every $1 that you bet. However, in order for this bet to make sense, you need to make the maximum insurance bet and only then will you be able to earn a lot of money if the dealer beats you in the main game.
The thing with insurance bet is that they don’t rely on strategy at all and are pure chance. They are often missed, and it is not advised for people who want to play blackjack seriously to place this bets at all. In other words, if you want to follow some of the basic strategies and refer to the blackjack strategy chart, insurance bets are a big no-no for you as they will probably make you lose more money.
In other words, the house edge gets much higher with this type of bets, and they can do nothing but harm in the long run. However, if you play blackjack for fun and want to take risks, feel free to place insurance bets whenever your gut tells you to do so, but make sure not to overdo it.