Whether you are playing in both casino or at online casino, if the dealer's up card is an ace, the dealer will ask for insurance bets. This is a chance for players to make a side bet that the dealer has blackjack like that his down card has a value of 10. If you want to bet insurance, you simply put additional chips in front of your original bet, totaling no more than 50% of your original bet.
If it turns out the dealer has blackjack, your insurance bet is paid off at 2 to 1 or twice the amount you put up for insurance. In this case, the players will still lose their original bets - unless they also have blackjack. However, if a player puts up insurance equal to half of his original bet and the dealer has blackjack, the payoff of the insurance bet at 2 to 1 will cover the loss of the original bet - so the player ends up breaking even.
It turns out that when a player has blackjack and the dealer is showing an ace, then making the maximum (50%) insurance bet is the same thing as guaran-teeing an even money payoff for the player. Let me explain how that works. If the dealer ends up having blackjack, then the player's 50% insurance bet is paid at 2 to 1 totaling the player's original bet but the original bet itself pushes because they both have blackjack, so the player ends up ahead by his original bet from the insurance payoff.
If it turns out the dealer does not have blackjack, then the player will lose his 50% insurance bet, but he will still get paid 150% on his original bet (for having blackjack), so his net profit ends up being exactly the amount of his original bet (150% payoff minus the 50% insurance loss).
Either way, the player ends up with a payoff of exact what he bet on the hand originally. Therefore, when the dealer is showing an ace, most casinos will allow a player with blackjack to call for "even money" and get paid 100% of his bet immediately. Of course, the player then gives up the possibility of getting paid 150%, if it turns out the dealer does not have blackjack.
Now that I have explained insurance and even money, let me just say that taking insurance (or even money on blackjack) is always a bad bet, unless you are counting cards and you know for sure that at least 1/3 (or 33.33%) of the remaining cards are 10-value cards. Normally, only 4/13 (or 30.769%) of the cards in the deck have a value of 10, so the payoff of 2 to 1 is not enough to justify the risk.
Betting on insurance is clearly in the casino's advantage. If you are not counting cards, you should never bet on insurance... period! Never. Not even to protect your own blackjack by taking even money. It's just a bad bet.
Specifically, the house has a 7.69% advantage on insurance bets. I know that some people prefer to take insurance when they have a strong hand, like 20 or blackjack, but the player's hand will win or lose on its own merit. Insurance is an independent side bet that has absolutely nothing to do with the player's hand. The math is clear. Even if the player has a very strong hand, he will win more money in the long run if he passes on insurance every time.
You might ask, "Why not take even money on blackjack? That guar-antees the player a win." That is true, but it guarantees a payoff of only 100% of your bet, when 9 out of 13 times you would get 150%. The 100% payoff that you gain 4 out of 13 times simply does not cover the extra 50% payoff that you give up 9 out of 13 times by taking insurance.
In the long run, your blackjacks (and all of your hands) will be more profitable if you don't take insurance. An essential part of playing the optimal basic strategy in blackjack is to never take insurance.
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