Blackjack Insurance: How It Works and Why to Decline It

Blackjack insurance is a side bet, offered only when the dealer’s up card is an Ace, that the dealer has blackjack. It costs up to half your original bet and pays 2:1, so a winning insurance bet cancels the loss on your main hand. The catch is the maths: in the eight-deck shoe used at most live tables only about 31% of the unseen cards are tens, which gives insurance a house edge of about 7.5%, roughly fifteen times the cost of the main game played with basic strategy. Unless you are counting cards, decline it every time.

Updated October 2026. We reworked the odds section (the old version’s percentages did not add up), added a deck-by-deck house-edge table, corrected the even-money example, explained the card counter’s +3 insurance index, and described how insurance works at live dealer tables today.

What Is the Blackjack Insurance Bet and How Does It Work?

Insurance is the only bet at a blackjack table where you back the dealer. You are wagering that the dealer’s second card is a ten-value card (10, Jack, Queen or King), which together with the Ace showing makes a natural. Because a dealer blackjack would beat your hand, the side bet is sold as protection, hence the name.

The round runs in this order at a standard table:

1. You place your main bet and receive two cards; the dealer shows an Ace.
2. Before anyone plays, the dealer offers insurance. At a land casino the dealer announces it; at a live online table a prompt appears with a short timer.
3. You may place an insurance bet of up to half your main stake, or decline.
4. The dealer checks for blackjack. On a hole-card table the dealer peeks at the face-down card; our guide to hole card vs no hole card blackjack explains when the check happens on other formats.
5. If the dealer has blackjack, insurance pays 2:1 and the main bet loses (or pushes if you also have blackjack). If not, the insurance bet is lost and the hand plays on as normal.

A worked example

You bet $10 and the dealer shows an Ace. Insuring the full amount costs $5.

Insurance changes nothing about your main hand. A $10 bet on 20 against an Ace is still a $10 bet on 20 whether or not you insure it; the insurance is a separate wager on a separate question.

What Are the Odds for Insurance Bets?

The bet pays 2:1, so it breaks even only when exactly one card in three is a ten. A standard deck has 16 ten-value cards out of 52, which is fewer than one in three (30.8%), and removing the dealer’s Ace barely changes that. Counting only the dealer’s Ace as a known card, the expected return per $1 of insurance is 3 x (tens left / cards left) minus 1.

For a six-deck shoe: 96 tens remain among 311 unseen cards. Your chance of winning is 96/311 = 30.87%, against 215/311 = 69.13% for losing. Expected return: (0.3087 x 2) minus (0.6913 x 1) = 0.6173 minus 0.6913 = minus 0.0740, a house edge of 7.40% (an RTP of 92.60%). Our old version of this page printed the 61.73% and 69.13% figures as if they were chances of winning and losing; they are the weighted win and loss amounts, and the two probabilities are 30.87% and 69.13%.

The eight-deck row is the one that matters online, and it is the same figure our live blackjack guide uses: three times 128/415 is 0.925, a house edge of about 7.5%. Fewer decks help a little, but even a single-deck game leaves insurance at nearly 6%.

Your own cards shift the odds slightly

The table ignores your two cards. If you hold two ten-value cards, two of the dealer’s winning cards are gone, and in an eight-deck game the chance of a dealer blackjack drops to 126/413 (30.51%), pushing the insurance edge to about 8.5%. Holding no tens at all leaves 128 tens among 413 cards (30.99%), an edge of about 7.0%. The common habit of insuring a strong hand such as 20 is therefore the worst time to do it: your two tens make the insurance bet even less likely to win.

(When) Should I Take Insurance?

For a player using basic strategy, never. Basic strategy charts do not include insurance because the answer does not depend on your hand or the dealer’s: in a six- or eight-deck game the bet always costs about 7.4% to 7.5% of what you put on it. That makes it far more expensive than the main game, where a good live table with basic strategy runs at roughly 0.5%.

Compared with the other side bets at a live table, insurance does not look much better. On standard eight-deck Evolution tables, 21+3 carries a house edge of 3.70% and Perfect Pairs 4.10%, according to the figures in our 21+3 side bet guide. Insurance, at about 7.5%, costs nearly twice as much as either, even though it is presented as a safety measure rather than a gamble.

Two arguments come up again and again in favour of insuring, and neither survives the maths:

• “It protects a good hand.” It does not change the outcome of your hand at all. It is a second bet on a 30.8% event that pays as if it were a 33.3% event.
• “The dealer keeps showing blackjack.” Every shoe is shuffled, and past dealer naturals tell you nothing about the next one unless you are tracking the exact cards that have left the shoe.

Even Money

Even money is insurance under another name. It is offered when you already hold blackjack and the dealer shows an Ace: instead of risking a push, you take a guaranteed 1:1 payout on your bet straight away. Some tables show the even-money button; at others you are simply offered insurance, and insuring a blackjack for half your bet produces exactly the same result.

Here is why. With a $10 bet and a $5 insurance bet on your blackjack:

• Dealer has blackjack: your hand pushes ($0) and insurance wins $10. Net +$10.
• Dealer does not: your blackjack pays 3:2 (+$15) and insurance loses $5. Net +$10.

Either way you win $10, which is even money. The question is whether a certain $10 beats the gamble of $15 or $0. With eight decks and your Ace and ten plus the dealer’s Ace removed, 127 tens remain among 413 cards, so the dealer has blackjack 30.75% of the time. Declining pays $15 on the other 69.25% of rounds, an average of $10.39 per $10 bet, against a flat $10 for taking even money. Using six decks, as the old version of this page did, gives 95 tens among 309 cards and almost the same answer: 214/309 x 1.5 = 1.0388, an average return of 103.88% if you decline. Turning down even money is worth about 3.9% of your bet every time it is offered.

The sums flip at a table that pays only 6:5 on blackjack. Declining there averages 1.2 x 69.25% = 83.1% of your bet, so a flat 1:1 even-money payout, if the table offers one, is worth more. That is a symptom of the poor payout rather than a point in favour of insurance: a 6:5 table adds about 1.4 percentage points to the house edge on every hand, so the better fix is a 3:2 table.

What if I Have Been Counting Cards?

Insurance is the one bet where card counting gives a clear, simple answer. The bet becomes profitable as soon as more than one unseen card in three is a ten, and a running tally of tens and low cards tells a counter roughly when that happens. In the Hi-Lo system, the Wizard of Odds lists insurance as the first play in the “Illustrious 18” index plays: take insurance when the true count (the running count divided by the decks remaining) is +3 or higher.

That is a real edge in a hand-dealt game with deep penetration. It is much harder to use at a live online table:

• Most live tables deal from eight decks, so the true count reaches +3 only occasionally.
• Bet timers are short, and you need to have tracked every card from the start of the shoe.
• Infinite-style tables deal one common hand to every player, so you see far fewer cards per round than at a full seven-seat table.
• The studio decides when the shoe is reshuffled, and the cut card leaves part of the shoe undealt.

Card counting is not illegal, but casinos can limit or refuse play to players they suspect of it. Related techniques are covered in our guide to shuffle tracking. For a recreational player who is not counting, the counter’s rule simplifies to one word: no.

Insurance at Live Dealer Tables

Live dealer blackjack follows the same insurance rule as a land casino table. On Evolution’s classic tables, insurance is offered when the dealer’s up card is an Ace, it costs half the main bet, it pays 2:1, and the dealer checks for blackjack once the insurance decision has closed. Evolution’s Infinite Blackjack also offers insurance on a dealer Ace at 2:1, and each player decides individually even though everyone shares the same starting hand.

A few practical points for live play:

• The insurance prompt has its own short timer. If you do nothing, the software treats it as a decline, which is the right answer anyway.
• Some tables let you insure less than half your bet; the edge is the same at any size, so a smaller insurance bet is simply a smaller loss on average.
• Insurance is settled separately in the round history, so if you query a result with support, check the insurance line as well as the main bet.
• The rules screen at each table is the final word on deck count, payouts and when the dealer checks for blackjack.

What Happens if I Decline the Insurance and End Up Losing Everything?

Sooner or later the dealer will turn over blackjack right after you declined, and it will sting. That single round is not the right way to judge the decision. Over many hands, the numbers are clear.

Picture 100 insurance decisions at an eight-deck table, insuring a $10 bet for $5 each time. You put $500 into insurance. About 30.8 times the dealer has blackjack, and each win returns $15 ($5 stake plus $10), so you get back about $463. Insuring every time therefore costs about $37, which is the 7.47% house edge applied to $500. Declining every time costs nothing extra; the rounds where the dealer has blackjack are already part of the normal house edge you accept when you sit down.

Keep a note of the insurance bets you take, and the pattern becomes obvious. The losses arrive quietly, $5 at a time, while the wins stand out because they come at dramatic moments.

Final Words

Insurance is not a disaster if you take it now and then for fun, and some players accept the cost as part of the entertainment. It is, however, one of the most expensive bets at the blackjack table, and the “protection” framing hides that. If you want to reduce what blackjack costs you, the better moves are choosing a 3:2 table, learning basic strategy and checking the dealer rule; our blackjack hub covers all three, and the guides on when to split and when to surrender handle the decisions that do pay off.

In the US, eight states have legalised online casinos; seven markets are live (NJ, PA, MI, WV, CT, DE, RI); Maine legalised a tribal-only market (LD 1164: became law without the governor’s signature in January 2026, effective 29 Jul 2026) that has not launched (Oct 2026). Live blackjack is available at the state-licensed casinos in those markets. For more live table formats, see our live casino games hub. If blackjack stops being entertainment, the National Problem Gambling Helpline is free and confidential on 1-800-MY-RESET (1-800-697-3738).

FAQ

What exactly is blackjack insurance?

Insurance is an optional side bet, offered only when the dealer’s up card is an Ace, that the dealer has blackjack. You can bet up to half your main stake, and it pays 2:1 if the dealer’s other card is a ten-value card.

Should you ever take insurance in blackjack?

Not if you play basic strategy. The bet carries a house edge of about 7.4% in a six-deck game and about 7.5% with eight decks. Only a card counter who knows the shoe is rich in tens (a Hi-Lo true count of +3 or more) should take it.

What is the house edge on blackjack insurance?

It depends on the number of decks: about 5.9% with one deck, 6.8% with two, 7.25% with four, 7.40% with six and 7.47% with eight. Most live tables use eight decks.

What is the difference between even money and insurance?

Even money is offered only when you have blackjack and the dealer shows an Ace; you take a guaranteed 1:1 payout instead of risking a push. Mathematically it is identical to insuring your blackjack for half your bet, and declining it returns about 3.9% more on average.

Does insurance pay if the dealer does not have blackjack?

No. If the dealer’s second card is not a ten-value card, the insurance bet is lost and your main hand plays on as normal.

Is insurance offered at live dealer blackjack?

Yes. At Evolution’s classic tables and Infinite Blackjack, insurance is offered on a dealer Ace, costs half the main bet and pays 2:1. A prompt appears with a short timer, and letting it run out counts as a decline.

What is the optimal strategy for blackjack?

Basic strategy: the mathematically best hit, stand, double, split or surrender decision for every hand against each dealer up card. Played without mistakes at a standard multi-deck table it brings the house edge down to about 0.5%. It also says never take insurance, a side bet whose house edge runs to several percent in shoe games. Our charts for hitting and standing, splitting pairs and doubling down set out each decision.