One of the worst bets in blackjack is insurance. The exception to the aforementioned statement is side bets. Those surpass even insurance. But insurance in blackjack is based on scaring a player into protecting their wager.
It works like this: You are in a casino and playing some blackjack. The dealer
Before you get all excited, this is not a sale. If you are in a blackjack game where you are wagering $20 per hand and an insurance wager costs you $10, this does not mean that for a limited time insurance will only cost $3. Sorry, if casinos are going to try to hang on to their house edge they are not about to put a sale on insurance.
When I say 70% off of insurance I am talking about the odds of a dealer
And what would be something about blackjack that does not ever change? Ever. One more ever just in case you missed it. And by never ever change I mean it is the same for blackjack in brick and mortar casinos, in online blackjack and in the mobile blackjack that is one the rise.
One such thing is insurance. Yes, insurance is the same. Not only does the rule not change, but a blackjack player
In the last couple of posts we have pieced together that card counting can help us with insurance. We all understand that card counting will allow us to know when the remaining cards contain more high cards than low. So what does this have to do with turning insurance to our benefit?
High cards include 10s. And insurance is a side bet on whether the dealer
If you recall my last post I discussed what exactly insurance is in blackjack. This was my opener to my overall explanation that insurance can in fact be used in the grand scheme to make money from blackjack. But such a trick is not for the newly green players of blackjack. And it is not for online blackjack play, but that is because card counting is necessary to turn insurance to your advantage.
Blackjack is one of those casino games that players can use strategy to turn the odds in towards them. Card counting is a blackjack strategy of skill that can actually allow the player to turn the game
I know I have always said to never take insurance when playing blackjack. And for the most part this is true. But there are a tiny number of times in which you do want to use insurance because you can turn it to your advantage.
Now the reason I normally do not say this is because the majority of blackjack players fall into one of two categories: always taking insurance and never taking insurance. And of the two, never taking insurance is safer for your bankroll and better for your odds.
But typically the majority of players do not find, remember and exploit the small times in which it can pay to take insurance.
But to begin to understand the finer points of exploiting insurance, we need to define exactly what insurance is and how it works.
Insurance is offered in blackjack when the dealer has an Ace showing. This is because he is definitely holding one of the two cards need for a natural blackjack. The two cards needed are an Ace and a 10 value card; of the two, the Ace is less populated in the deck, hence why insurance is offered when the dealer shows an Ace rather than a 10 value card.
Most blackjack players think that insurance is offered because the dealer stands a shot of having blackjack and that the player needs to protect
And I thought that insurance was being sneaky. It has nothing on Bad Beat Blackjack Progressive by DEQ Systems Corp. DEQ has spent the last five years creating and designing a new electronic side bet that can be built into blackjack tables.
Shall we compare the two and see just how sneaky Bad Beat Blackjack Progressive is.
First we will look at insurance. Insurance is offered when the dealer has an Ace showing, and essentially is a side bet on whether the dealer
I hear now and again that some players want to know what a good blackjack variation is and what are bad ones. There are some rules of thumb in helping players discern which variations are bad and which ones are not.
The primary indicator of a good blackjack variation is one that does not use side bets as the center point of the game. Yes, I know, that knocks the majority of blackjack variations out of consideration.
But think about it a moment
I love the game of blackjack. The one on one feeling that you get from playing only against the table, even if you are at a full table. The smooth feeling you get when you know your blackjack strategy is doing its thing against the house edge. The feeling of knowing that I am playing the one game in the entire casino or online casino that has the best odds for me to win and make a profit.
But it is true that there are some things that I just do not like about blackjack.
For one thing I do not like insurance.
I do not like the sneaky way the casinos present this playing option as something that benefits the player when in fact it is designed purely to try to take more money from the player
Imagine that there is a way to protect your blackjack wager. A sort of insurance that will cover your wager so that you do not lose it in case the dealer turns up that natural blackjack.
Such a thing exists. And it is called insurance in blackjack. But it is not as rosy of a picture as casinos would like for you to believe.
Insurance is offered when the dealer has an Ace for an up card. It is offered because an Ace is required for a natural blackjack, and is the less common of the two cards needed. So the feeling is that if the less common required card is present, there is a good chance that the hole card will have a value of 10.
This is what casinos would like for you to think. But let