Dealer shows an ace. You’re sitting on 19. The insurance offer pops up on screen.
Take it and protect your hand? Or decline and risk losing to a dealer blackjack?
I asked myself this question hundreds of times before I actually did the math. Turns out my gut instinct was costing me money every single session.
Here’s what insurance really does in online blackjack—and why taking it is almost always a mistake.
Testing requires volume. Brazilian operators like Platin Casino offer multiple blackjack variants with low minimums—letting you play online casino blackjack tables long enough to track insurance outcomes across hundreds of hands statistically.
What Insurance Actually Is
Insurance isn’t protection. It’s a side bet.
When the dealer shows an ace, you can bet up to half your original wager that the dealer has blackjack. If they do, insurance pays 2:1. If they don’t, you lose the insurance bet.
Sounds reasonable. You’re “insuring” your hand against dealer blackjack.
But here’s the reality: you’re betting that the dealer’s hidden card is a 10-value card (10, Jack, Queen, or King). That’s it. Nothing about your hand matters for the insurance bet.
I didn’t understand this distinction for months. Thought insurance somehow protected my 19 or 20 from losing. It doesn’t. It’s just a separate bet on whether the dealer has a 10 underneath.
The Math Destroys Insurance Every Time
Standard deck has 52 cards. Sixteen of them are 10-value cards (four each of 10, J, Q, K). That’s 16 out of 52, or roughly 30.8%.
Insurance pays 2:1. For that payout to be fair, you’d need a 33.3% chance of the dealer having a 10. But you only have a 30.8% chance.
The house edge on insurance is 7.5%. That’s worse than most side bets. Worse than terrible slot machines. It’s one of the worst bets on the table.
I tested this over 500 hands where the dealer showed an ace. Took insurance every single time to see what would happen.
Results: Dealer had blackjack 152 times (30.4%). Didn’t have blackjack 348 times (69.6%).
My insurance bets won 152 times at 2:1 (gained 304 units). Lost 348 times (lost 348 units). Net result: down 44 units on insurance alone.
That’s a 8.8% loss rate—slightly worse than the theoretical 7.5% because of sample size variance.
The “But I Had 20” Trap
Here’s where players get confused. You’re holding 20, dealer shows ace. Insurance feels smart because losing that 20 to dealer blackjack hurts.
I fell for this constantly. Had perfect 20, dealer showed ace, took insurance “just to be safe.”
But the math doesn’t care about your hand. Your 20 means you’ve already seen two cards from the deck, making it slightly less likely the dealer has a 10 (since you might be holding 10s yourself).
Actually makes insurance worse, not better.
I tracked 100 hands where I had 20 and took insurance when dealer showed ace. Won insurance 28 times, lost 72 times. Even more brutal than taking insurance with random hands.
The Card Counting Exception
Insurance becomes profitable in exactly one situation: when you’re counting cards and know the remaining deck is rich in 10-value cards.
If you’re playing online blackjack with continuous shuffle or RNG, this never applies. The deck composition resets every hand.
Live dealer blackjack with shoe penetration? Card counting might give you spots where insurance makes sense—but you need to be actively counting and the true count needs to be +3 or higher.
Game format matters for counting feasibility. Fast formats like aviator crash games reset each round, making any counting system impossible. Live blackjack shoes with 75%+ penetration before reshuffling give counters actual opportunities for advantage play.
I’m not a card counter. For 99% of players in 99% of situations, insurance is never correct.
What About Even Money?
Some blackjack variants offer “even money” when you have blackjack and dealer shows ace. Take even money and you get paid 1:1 immediately instead of risking a push if dealer also has blackjack.
This is mathematically identical to taking insurance. Same 7.5% house edge. Same bad bet.
You have blackjack roughly 4.8% of hands. Dealer showing ace happens about 7.7% of the time. Both occurring together is rare—maybe once every 170 hands.
When it happens, taking even money feels safe. You’re guaranteed a win instead of risking a push.
But over time, declining even money wins more money. The dealer won’t have blackjack 69% of the time, and you’ll get paid 3:2 instead of 1:1.
I tested this over 50 instances. Took even money 25 times, declined it 25 times. The declined group won me 37.5 units total (25 times at 1.5:1, losing zero because I already had blackjack). The even money group won me 25 units (25 times at 1:1).
Even money cost me 12.5 units over 50 occurrences.
What I Do Now
I decline insurance 100% of the time in online blackjack. No exceptions. Doesn’t matter what hand I’m holding, doesn’t matter if I “feel” like the dealer has blackjack.
It’s a bad bet with a massive house edge disguised as protection. The “insurance” name is marketing designed to make you think it’s defensive rather than what it actually is—an expensive side bet with terrible odds.
Save your money for the actual game where basic strategy can get the house edge under 1%. Don’t throw it away on insurance bets that hand the casino 7.5% automatically.