10JILI Blackjack Insurance: What It Pays and When to Take It

Blackjack insurance is offered the moment the dealer turns up an ace, and the decision takes a few seconds. This page gives you the payout, the test that tells you whether it is worth it, and the pair rules that go with it. Read it alongside the wider table games at 10JILI before you open a live blackjack table.

How blackjack insurance works

When the dealer’s face-up card is an ace, you may place an insurance bet of up to half your original stake. It wins if the dealer’s face-down card is a ten-value card, which gives the dealer blackjack, and it pays 2:1.

Take a PHP100 main bet with PHP50 of insurance.

1. Dealer has blackjack: you lose PHP100 on the main bet and win PHP100 on insurance, so you break even.
2. Dealer has no blackjack: you lose the PHP50 of insurance and play the hand on as normal.

The insurance is a separate bet on one question, whether the hole card is worth ten. It has nothing to do with the strength of your own hand.

What blackjack insurance pays, worked out

Insurance pays 2:1, so it wins 2 units per unit staked and loses 1 when it misses. The break-even chance follows from that: p x 2 must equal (1 minus p) x 1, so p is one in three, or 33.3%.

The real chance depends on the cards left. Ten-value cards are the tens, jacks, queens and kings, four of each, so they make up 16 of the 52 cards in a deck.

Deck	Ten-value cards left	Chance of blackjack	Average result per unit insured
Endless deck (4 in 13)	4 of 13	30.77%	minus 7.69%
One deck, ace showing	16 of 51	31.37%	minus 5.88%
Eight decks, ace showing	128 of 415	30.84%	minus 7.47%

Each result is 3 x p minus 1. Every ten-value card already on the table, including the ones in your own hand, lowers the chance further.

Should you take insurance in blackjack?

On a fresh shoe the sum says no, because the chance of the hole card being worth ten sits below 33.3% and the bet loses money on average. It becomes worth taking only when the ten-value cards left in the shoe make up more than one in three of the rest, and you cannot see that from the table without tracking every card played.

Even money is the same decision in disguise. You hold blackjack and the dealer shows an ace, so a PHP100 bet would win PHP150 at 3:2 if the dealer has no blackjack, and push if the dealer does. Taking PHP50 of insurance makes both outcomes pay PHP100, which is exactly what even money offers.

So even money costs you the same 7.69% or so on the half stake that insurance does. Decline it on a fresh shoe.

Blackjack split: the pair rules that go with it

Splitting is the other decision that costs extra stake, and the same discipline applies. When your first two cards have the same value you may split them into two hands, place a second bet equal to the first, and play each hand separately.

Your pair	Split?	Why
Aces	Always	A pair of aces is 2 or 12; two hands starting from 11 are far stronger
Eights	Always	16 is the weakest total to play, and two hands from 8 beat one 16
Fives	Never	10 is a strong start for doubling, and two hands from 5 are weak
Ten-value cards	Never	20 is already almost the best hand you can hold

Tables differ on resplitting, doubling after a split, and how many cards a split ace receives, so open the table’s rules screen before you split. A split doubles the stake in play, so it also doubles what you risk in one round; check your loss limit meaning before you go on.

Five rules for blackjack insurance

Keep these five in front of you at any live table.

1. Insurance is only offered when the dealer shows an ace.
2. It costs up to half your original bet and pays 2:1.
3. It is a bet on the hole card, not a way to protect a strong hand.
4. On a fresh shoe it loses about 5.9% to 7.7% of the insured stake on average.
5. Even money is the same bet at full size, so the same answer applies.

Compare the shape of this bet with the wheel in roulette odds, where every bet carries one edge, and with the banker payout tweak explained on the Super 6 baccarat page.