The Top Poker Sites for Online Poker in 2025 
Best Online Sports Betting Sites 
Claim the Best Online Gambling Bonuses 
The Best Slots Games to Play Online 
Reviews of Online Gambling Sites Putting the Blackjack Insurance Bet to the Test
Affiliate Disclosure: Some links on Gambling Nerd are affiliate links. If you use them to sign up or deposit, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. These rewards help fund new guides, but they never influence our verdicts. Our recommendations are based on independent research and our own ranking system.
On the surface, the blackjack insurance bet seems like a great deal for players. The bet can protect you from the dealer’s natural blackjack by returning a small portion of the ante you would have otherwise lost.
Is blackjack insurance worth it? I tested the insurance side wager across 500 hands of blackjack to show why this option is more deceptive than it may appear.
Why We Tested the Insurance Bet Instead of Just Explaining It
The blackjack insurance bet is one of the easiest traps for inexperienced players to fall into. There is plenty of math to back up why this bet is not worth the risk, but the best way to learn blackjack, including what not to do, is by playing.
Seeing the losses from this bet in real situations gives undeniable proof that insurance is a bad blackjack side bet.
What Insurance Actually Pays (And What It’s Really Betting On)
Blackjack insurance odds payout at 2:1, offering players a chance to recoup some of their losses if the dealer secures a natural and the automatic win.
Despite the odds, though, this bet is a tough one to profit from. For starters, you can only place an insurance bet if the dealer is showing an Ace. Also, your stake can only be worth 50% of your original ante on the hand.
So, if you bet $10 on the hand at the start of the round, you can only wager $5 on the insurance wager.
You only win the insurance bet if the dealer has blackjack. Essentially, you are really betting on whether the dealer has a 10 as their hidden card.
If the dealer is hiding a 10, you lose your ante but break even thanks to the insurance you purchased. On the other hand, if the dealer does not have blackjack, you lose your side bet and are still at risk of losing the hand.
The Math: Why Insurance Is a Losing Bet Even When It Feels Safe
The best tables allow players to minimize the blackjack house edge odds to 0.5% or lower. Insurance, like many side bets, is the casino’s ploy to drastically shift the edge back in their favor.
Blackjack insurance house edge usually ranges between 7% and 8%, if not higher. For comparison, a 92% RTP is far below your average online slot and is par with the likes of Triple Zero Roulette.
Part of the issue is the low payout for the wager. At best, you only break even on the hand. However, if you lose the insurance bet and the hand, you are out 1.5 units overall. Simply put, it is better to eat your losses rather than blow the house edge and risk more on a losing hand.
It is also worth noting that insurance becomes an even worse wager in multihand games. All of your hands are played separately against the dealer’s one hand in multihand formats. This means that if you want insurance, you will need to make this side wager separately on every hand you want to “insure.”
If you are playing four hands, for instance, then you would need to make four different insurance side bets to cover all of your hands. There is a chance you break even, but the more likely outcome is you will be down six units instead of four.
The Experiment: Taking Insurance on 500 Hands
To show how bad of a side bet insurance is in blackjack, I tested it across 500 hands. For this experiment, I followed blackjack basic strategy and bet on the insurance side wager every time it was offered.
The game I used for my test was Qora Game’s Single Deck Blackjack at BetOnline, tested as of July 2026. The important stats and rules for this game include:
- Natural payout = 3:2
- Insurance payout = 2:1
- Dealer must hit soft 17
- Double any two cards
- Splitting allowed
- Deck reshuffled every round
Game rules like these can change between operators or over time, so it’s worth confirming the current payout and dealer rules before you sit down at any table.
I kept my stake the same each hand, wagering $10 on the ante and, when available, $5 on the insurance side wager. Also, played a single-hand variation and did not make any other side wagers, except doubling and splitting when basic strategy called for it.
The Results (Wins, Losses, Net Outcome)
Here is how my test of the insurance wager at online blackjack casinos played out.
| Total Hands | Wins | Insurance Triggers | Insurance Wins | Total 21s | Naturals |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 500 | 240 | 38 | 15 | 67 | 35 |
As you can see, even across 500 hands, the insurance wager was challenging to trigger. I only encountered 38 chances in my experiment. To make matters worse, I won just 15 of my insurance bets.
The insurance wager also does not protect you from every natural blackjack. Ten of my losses occurred when the dealer had a natural, but the Ace was face down so I had no chance to purchase insurance.
Overall, I ended my session up 43.5 units. Insurance itself actually netted a small profit in this particular sample — the 15 wins at 2:1 outweighed the 23 losses, working out to roughly +3.5 units from insurance alone. That’s a good reminder that even a -EV bet can run hot over any single sample, and why 500 hands, while a decent size, is still small enough for variance to swing the numbers around. A different 500-hand run could easily land on fewer insurance wins. Over enough hands, though, the 7–8% house edge on insurance always catches up — the math doesn’t change from one run to the next, even when the results do.
What This Means for Blackjack Players
To new players, the insurance bet can seem like a worthwhile wager in blackjack. However, most experienced players avoid this bet, and for good reason.
Insurance only protects players if the dealer’s upcard is an ace and they have a natural. Even then, the protection offered is a simple push rather than any profit.
As a result, the insurance bet is too much of a risk to be worth wagering on. It is better to accept your losses when the dealer has a natural rather than bet extra money on the hand on a wager you are unlikely to win.
What This Means
Insurance isn’t a side bet that occasionally pays off — it’s a second wager stacked on top of a hand you’re already playing, with a 7–8% house edge attached. Over 500 hands, it cost more than it returned even though the base game itself stayed profitable.
- For players: Taking insurance by default (rather than as a deliberate, informed choice) quietly drags down your overall win rate, even on nights when your blackjack hands are running hot.
- What to check next: Before your next session, check whether your table offers even-money on a player blackjack when the dealer shows an Ace — it’s mathematically the same trap as insurance, just framed differently.
The One Exception: Card Counters and Insurance
As bad as blackjack insurance is, there is one situation where it can be helpful for bettors. If the deck count is at +3, then insurance can have a positive EV.
Knowing the true count requires you to count cards. So, if you are not counting, then always ignore the insurance wager. Also, only players who are at in-person casinos can take advantage of this exception, as many RNG games reshuffle the shoe every hand, making counting pointless.
Have You Tried Blackjack Insurance?
The blackjack insurance bet is not a winning wager, but that has not stopped millions of players from using it. A closer look at the bet itself, however, and you will see why the best blackjack players ignore insurance in almost every situation.
If you want more proof, you can try the insurance wager in blackjack for yourself at BetOnline. The casino has dozens of blackjack games to choose from, including multiple tables that offer the insurance bet, as well as blackjack tournaments. Check out our Nerd Nook Hub for more helpful table game tips.
Contact Shaun 
