Atlassino Academy · Blackjack · Lesson 12 of 21
Insurance and even money
The offer that comes with an ace showing: what the insurance line is a bet on, how much the rules let you put there, and what even money is.
The dealer’s first card is an ace, and before anyone has played a card, the dealer offers insurance. What is that offer asking you to put money on?
The short answer
Insurance is a second bet of your own money, placed on a line of its own beside your bet. It rides on the dealer’s second card being worth ten, it is settled on its own against that one card and against nothing you are holding, and the house keeps a far larger share of the money on the insurance line than of the money on your own bet.
The dealer
Your cards
Your two cards are face up, and no decision has been made on them yet.Your own bet
The insurance line
What the insurance offer is a bet on
The offer arrives at one moment and one moment only. The dealer’s first card is an ace, the dealer announces insurance out loud to the table, and the offer is made before anyone has hit, stood, doubled or split. Nobody has made a decision yet when the money has to go down.
What the money is on is the dealer’s second card. At a table run by the rules BCLC publishes for B.C. casinos, the dealer takes one card in the deal and no more, so the card the insurance bet rides on has not been dealt at the moment you are asked to bet on it.
Your own bet is the full length; the insurance line may take up to half of your own bet.
The insurance bet is capped by the bet you already have in front of you: the rules let you put up to one half of that bet on the insurance line, and the dealer runs a hand along the line to see that nobody at the table has put down more than that. It is not added to your own bet and it does not change your own bet in any way.
| Your own bet | The insurance bet | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is settled against | your own hand against the dealer’s hand | the dealer’s second card, and nothing else |
| Where the money sits | the betting spot in front of you | the insurance line |
| How large it may be | the amount you put down before the deal | up to one half of your own bet |
| When the money goes down | before the deal begins | after the dealer’s ace is showing, and before anybody has played |
| When it is settled | once the dealer’s hand has been finished | the moment the dealer’s second card is dealt, which is after every player has finished |
| What it is paid | 1 to 1, and 3 to 2 on a blackjack | 2 to 1 |
When the dealer’s second card arrives, the insurance bet is settled in one of two ways.
The insurance line is paid 2 to 1
The dealer has a blackjack, and every insurance bet on the table is paid at 2 to 1.
The insurance line is taken at once
The dealer collects the insurance bets immediately, from right to left down the table, and the hand you came to play is then settled by the ordinary rules.
The 2 to 1 on the insurance line is not a rate the BCLC rules set on their own. Two more casino operators outside B.C. publish rules for their own blackjack tables, and both of them pay the insurance bet at the same 2 to 1 when the dealer’s hand is a blackjack. The order in which the cards come to the dealer is set by those same rules, and that order is not the same at every table, so a table outside B.C. can pay the insurance line at that same 2 to 1 and still settle it at a different moment in the hand.
Leoformer dealer · rules and maths
Count the bets rather than the moves. Two bets sit on the felt: one on how your hand finishes against the dealer’s, the other on what one particular card turns out to be.
What the dealer’s second card has to be
The insurance bet is paid on one thing: the dealer’s second card being worth ten. Four ranks are worth ten — the ten itself, the jack, the queen and the king — because every face card counts as ten and every other card counts what it says.
How often such a card comes off the shoe is a matter of counting the shoe. A blackjack table in B.C. is dealt from six decks, and a full six-deck shoe with the dealer’s ace taken out of it and no other card counted holds 96 cards worth ten and 215 cards worth something else. At a real table the players’ cards are face up on the felt as well, and this count does not follow them.
Put the payout and the count together and the insurance line has a price, the same way the bet you came to play has one: of the money placed on that line, 7.40% stays with the house on average. That share is worked out from a full six-deck shoe with the dealer’s ace taken out of it and no other card counted, which is the arithmetic of the offer rather than a reading of any particular shoe.
Even money is that same bet on a blackjack
There is one hand where the offer is put to you in different words. If your first two cards are a blackjack and the dealer’s first card is an ace, you may ask for even money, and the rules we could read name it inside the paragraph on insurance itself. The dealer then pays your blackjack at 1 to 1 at once, without waiting to see the second card at all.
| The dealer’s second card makes a blackjack | The dealer’s second card does not | |
|---|---|---|
| You ask for even money | 1 to 1, paid the moment you ask | 1 to 1, paid the moment you ask |
| You do not ask | a tie or push: nothing paid, nothing taken | 3 to 2 |
A blackjack that is not settled early is paid at 3 to 2, except when the dealer’s second card makes a blackjack too, and then the hand is a tie or push: nothing is paid and nothing is taken. So the choice at that moment is between one amount every time and two amounts that depend on one card. It is worth keeping the words themselves apart as well, because the published rules use them for two different things.
Even money in lower case is the rate at which a hand is settled; Even Money as an option is a request you make to the dealer, and the same two words carry both. When a player at the table says “I took even money”, the option is what is meant: the insurance offer, made to a hand that is already a blackjack, settled on the spot.
Mayaformer floor supervisor · manners, money and breaks
Decide how much money the evening gets and how long it runs before you sit down, and stop when either one is used up. The insurance line is worth naming in that plan, because it is the one moment in a hand when the table asks you for more money before you have played a card, and a second bet put down because the moment feels urgent is money spent rather than money saved. A run of losing hands is not a debt the table owes you, and putting more down to get it back only makes the hour dearer. If the money on the table starts to feel like money you need, call one of the lines below — that is what they are for.
If it stops being fun
If gambling stops being entertainment, help is available. 19+ in most of Canada; 18+ in Alberta, Manitoba and Quebec. More on responsible gaming.
Practice table
The practice table deals hands from a shuffled shoe and checks your first decision on each hand against the chart for the table rules you pick. Decide with the buttons or with the keys H, S, D and R. Every square on the strip is one hand, only your first move on each hand is counted, and when a level’s squares are full the next level begins by itself. There is no money on the practice table: the amounts beside each decision are averages for the example bet you choose.
The insurance offer is not one of the buttons on the practice table, and that is on purpose. Insurance is a bet rather than a way of playing a hand, and what the practice table grades is the decision the chart answers: hit, stand, double or surrender. The offer itself is checked by the questions further down.
Rules differ by province. Pick the rules closest to the table where you play; this table then answers by the chart for those rules. The bet is only an example for the amounts shown, not a suggested bet.
Dealer
You
Lesson done
Review my mistakes (0)
Progress stays in this browser; nothing is sent anywhere.
The practice table needs JavaScript. Here is one hand from it, with the answer.
Dealer shows a 7
You hard 16
The chart says: Hit.
Hard 16 against a 7: The dealer card is strong: standing on 16 loses whenever the dealer finishes on 17 or more, 73.8% of hands against a 7.
Average result per hand on an example bet of $10 (a minus means money lost): stand −$4.77 · hit −$4.09 · double −$8.17 · surrender −$5.00. Standing instead costs about $0.68 more each time.
Check yourself
Mayaformer floor supervisor · manners, money and breaks
Five quick ones. Pick an answer, then check it. No timer, no points: just whether it stuck.
The ace showing on the table asks you for a second bet, and that bet is on the dealer’s second card: not on the two cards in front of you, and not on how your own hand finishes.
Where to play, and further reading
19+ (18+ in AB, MB, QC) · Play responsibly · help, day or night: Gambling Support BC 1-888-795-6111, 24 hours
Further reading
- Rules of Play for Table Games: Blackjack · British Columbia Lottery Corporation (BCLC)The rules this track follows section by section: six decks, the dealer on soft 17, doubling, splitting and surrender.
- Game rules: Blackjack · Loto-Québec (Société des casinos du Québec)Québec’s rules: one to eight decks, a face-down dealer card, and the soft-17 rule left to the sign at the table.
- Playing Blackjack · Fallsview Casino Resort and Casino NiagaraOne Ontario operator’s own booklet, including both blackjack payouts and both dealer rules it may post.
- Blackjack: how to play · OLG PlaySmartOntario’s beginner page: the moves, the hand signals it describes, and what insurance is.
- Know the game: Blackjack · Casinos Regina & Moose Jaw (SaskGaming)A Saskatchewan operator on what the chart does and does not do, and where to pick one up in the building.
- Blackjack basics · Wizard of OddsWhat three common ways of playing blackjack without the chart cost, on that author’s own table.
How it’s worked out
Rules, numbers and hosts
Where this happens. Every table on this page is a blackjack table standing in a room you can walk into, and the rules it follows are the ones BCLC publishes for B.C. casinos. That book of rules sets out more than one blackjack game, and every table on this page is the basic game of blackjack out of it: a table run as one of the other games in the same book is not described here, and what a blackjack is paid at such a table can differ from the 3 to 2 quoted on this page. A table in another province is governed by the book of rules its own operator publishes and by the sign standing on the felt, and both of those are worth reading before the first hand.
Numbers. Four numbers on this page are worked out when the page is built. The count of cards worth ten and the count of every other card come from the six decks the rules put in the shoe, with the dealer’s ace taken out of them. The share of the money on the insurance line that stays with the house is the same calculation our house-edge tool prints for insurance: 2 to 1 paid against that count. The share the house keeps of your own bet is worked out by the same engine as our blackjack strategy tool, for these table rules, assuming the full chart — hard totals, soft hands and pairs together — and cards shuffled after every hand.
What is deliberately absent. There is no figure here for how often the dealer’s second card is worth ten at the table you are sitting at, because that changes as cards leave the shoe and nothing on this page follows them. There is no figure for what the insurance line costs over an evening, and no advice about when to take the offer or refuse it. There is no account here of when the insurance bet is settled outside B.C., because the order in which the cards come is set by the rules each province publishes, and those orders are not the same; what that bet is paid outside B.C. is quoted from the rules two operators publish for their own tables, and nothing else about a table in another province is set out on this page. The price of the bet is a price, and a price is all this page puts on it.
Hosts. Maya and Leo are illustrated characters. Their backstories, a former floor supervisor and a former dealer, are written for the course: neither is a real person, and neither speaks for any casino. The rules and numbers on this page come from the sources it cites, not from their experience.
No promise. Blackjack is played against the house. Nothing on this page makes the game free of cost, and nothing on it says how an evening will end.
What the game is
In our words: The aim is to finish with a higher total than the dealer while staying at 21 or under.
Section 1.0 Basic Blackjack, 1.1 to 1.3.1
BCLC · Rules of Play for Table Games — Blackjack · read
To win, the player must beat the house's hand without going over 21.
Section The object of the game
What the insurance offer is
In our words: when the dealer’s up card is an ace, players are offered insurance: a side bet that pays if the dealer has a blackjack.
Section 1.0 Basic Blackjack, 4.6 to 4.6.3.a and 8.3, 8.4, 8.10
BCLC · Rules of Play for Table Games — Blackjack · read
Insurance is a side bet that the dealer has Blackjack and is treated independently of the main wager.
How much may go on the insurance line
In our words: Insurance is a separate bet on the insurance line, at most half the size of your main bet.
In our words: The dealer sweeps a hand over the insurance line to check that no insurance bet is more than half of its main bet.
Section 1.0 Basic Blackjack, 4.6 to 4.6.3.a and 8.3, 8.4, 8.10
BCLC · Rules of Play for Table Games — Blackjack · read
When the offer comes
In our words: With an ace showing, the dealer calls out the insurance offer.
In our words: It is offered before anyone plays a hand.
Section 1.0 Basic Blackjack, 4.6 to 4.6.3.a and 8.3, 8.4, 8.10
BCLC · Rules of Play for Table Games — Blackjack · read
The order of a hand
In our words: Going over 21 is a bust: the bet is lost on the spot, apart from the special cases for doubled and split hands.
Section 1.0 Basic Blackjack, 7.1 to 7.3
BCLC · Rules of Play for Table Games — Blackjack · read
In our words: A busted hand is cleared at once, unless it is a split or doubled hand and the dealer’s face-up card is an ace or a ten-value card.
In our words: When every player has finished, the dealer plays by fixed rules:
In our words: draw on 16 or less, and on soft 17;
In our words: and stop drawing at hard 17.
Section 1.0 Basic Blackjack, 8.5 to 8.9
BCLC · Rules of Play for Table Games — Blackjack · read
What a hand is paid
In our words: Apart from a blackjack, every paid hand gets even money, 1 to 1.
In our words: A blackjack pays 3 to 2.
In our words: Equal totals are a tie, called a push: the bet stays where it is.
Section 1.0 Basic Blackjack, 7.1 to 7.3
BCLC · Rules of Play for Table Games — Blackjack · read
If the player gets a blackjack, the bet is paid 3 to 2, except when the house's hand is also a blackjack.
Section The payouts, General rules
What the insurance line pays
In our words: Insurance pays 2 to 1 when the dealer turns out to have a blackjack.
Section 1.0 Basic Blackjack, 4.6 to 4.6.3.a and 8.3, 8.4, 8.10
BCLC · Rules of Play for Table Games — Blackjack · read
What the insurance line pays
In our words: Insurance pays 2 to 1 when the dealer turns out to have a blackjack.
Section 1.0 Basic Blackjack, 4.6 to 4.6.3.a and 8.3, 8.4, 8.10
BCLC · Rules of Play for Table Games — Blackjack · read
What happens when the dealer has no blackjack
In our words: If the dealer’s second card does not make a blackjack, the dealer takes the insurance bets at once, working from right to left.
Section 1.0 Basic Blackjack, 4.6 to 4.6.3.a and 8.3, 8.4, 8.10
BCLC · Rules of Play for Table Games — Blackjack · read
Following the chart lowers the cost of play
By following basic strategy you can reduce the house advantage and your cost of play.
What even money is paid
In our words: The dealer then pays your blackjack straight away at even money, 1 to 1.
Section 1.0 Basic Blackjack, 4.6 to 4.6.3.a and 8.3, 8.4, 8.10
BCLC · Rules of Play for Table Games — Blackjack · read
Both blackjacks push
In our words: A blackjack against a dealer blackjack is a push.
Section 1.0 Basic Blackjack, 3.1 to 3.3
BCLC · Rules of Play for Table Games — Blackjack · read
If the Dealer also has Blackjack, it is a standoff (push) and no one wins and the player's bet is returned.
Section Blackjack
What a hand is paid
In our words: Apart from a blackjack, every paid hand gets even money, 1 to 1.
In our words: A blackjack pays 3 to 2.
In our words: Equal totals are a tie, called a push: the bet stays where it is.
Section 1.0 Basic Blackjack, 7.1 to 7.3
BCLC · Rules of Play for Table Games — Blackjack · read
If the player gets a blackjack, the bet is paid 3 to 2, except when the house's hand is also a blackjack.
Section The payouts, General rules
When the offer comes
In our words: With an ace showing, the dealer calls out the insurance offer.
In our words: It is offered before anyone plays a hand.
Section 1.0 Basic Blackjack, 4.6 to 4.6.3.a and 8.3, 8.4, 8.10
BCLC · Rules of Play for Table Games — Blackjack · read
What the insurance offer is
In our words: when the dealer’s up card is an ace, players are offered insurance: a side bet that pays if the dealer has a blackjack.
Section 1.0 Basic Blackjack, 4.6 to 4.6.3.a and 8.3, 8.4, 8.10
BCLC · Rules of Play for Table Games — Blackjack · read
Insurance is a side bet that the dealer has Blackjack and is treated independently of the main wager.
The dealer takes one card
In our words: then deals the dealer’s own card face up, in front of the chip rack;
Section 1.0 Basic Blackjack, 8.2.1 to 8.2.3
BCLC · Rules of Play for Table Games — Blackjack · read
How much may go on the insurance line
In our words: Insurance is a separate bet on the insurance line, at most half the size of your main bet.
In our words: The dealer sweeps a hand over the insurance line to check that no insurance bet is more than half of its main bet.
Section 1.0 Basic Blackjack, 4.6 to 4.6.3.a and 8.3, 8.4, 8.10
BCLC · Rules of Play for Table Games — Blackjack · read
What the insurance line pays at two tables elsewhere
If the house draws a blackjack, the insurance bet pays 2 to 1.
Section The player options
All winning insurance wagers pay 2 to 1.
Section Insurance
What the cards are worth
In our words: You choose whether each ace is worth 1 or 11.
In our words: Jacks, queens and kings are each worth 10.
In our words: Every other card is worth the number printed on it.
Section 1.0 Basic Blackjack, 2.1 to 2.2.1
BCLC · Rules of Play for Table Games — Blackjack · read
An ace can count as either 1 or 11 points, face cards are worth 10 points, and all other cards are worth their face value.
Section The cards
Six decks from a shoe
In our words: The dealer deals from a shoe holding six ordinary decks.
Section 1.0 Basic Blackjack, 1.1 to 1.3.1
BCLC · Rules of Play for Table Games — Blackjack · read
Even money in the published rules
In our words: if you hold a blackjack and want to protect it, you can ask for even money.
Section 1.0 Basic Blackjack, 4.6 to 4.6.3.a and 8.3, 8.4, 8.10
BCLC · Rules of Play for Table Games — Blackjack · read
What even money is paid
In our words: The dealer then pays your blackjack straight away at even money, 1 to 1.
Section 1.0 Basic Blackjack, 4.6 to 4.6.3.a and 8.3, 8.4, 8.10
BCLC · Rules of Play for Table Games — Blackjack · read
Both blackjacks push
In our words: A blackjack against a dealer blackjack is a push.
Section 1.0 Basic Blackjack, 3.1 to 3.3
BCLC · Rules of Play for Table Games — Blackjack · read
If the Dealer also has Blackjack, it is a standoff (push) and no one wins and the player's bet is returned.
Section Blackjack
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