Hedging Your Bets in Blackjack

Video Transcript

"Hi, right now I’m placing some cards for examples of what happens if you have an ace up. If the dealer has an ace showing with the hole card underneath, before the betting begins and after the first bet has happened, the dealer will then want to look to see what is underneath the face card. But before this happens, there is something called the insurance bet. An insurance bet is making a side bet. What it means is, is that the player will believe that the dealer has a blackjack. So as I go left to right, and go to each player, it’s their option to decide if I have a blackjack or not. If they think that I do, its called an insurance bet. So for example, lets say the player has bet a hundred dollars, if they believe I have a blackjack, and this is a hundred dollar chip, they will take half of their bet, which is fifty and that represents to me that they believe that I have a blackjack. I’ll go to each player, when they’re done deciding if they want insurance or not, and again, insurance pays two to one, and I’ll explain in a second, the dealer will then look underneath to see if they have a ten, and in this case I do. They’ll turn over their card, starting from right to left, they will see, see who has insurance bets, so for example, we’ll just start with this person. They had an insurance bet. That means that since I have a blackjack and the dealer wins everything on blackjack, except other blackjacks, the dealer will then take the original bet, which is the hundred dollars, but they believed I had blackjack, the insurance bet. They bet fifty dollars, so I will pay two to one, which is actually basically getting their hundred dollars back, but instead of losing the whole bet, they actually win an extra fifty dollars. The other people, who did not bet an insurance bet, lose their original bet. So let’s look at this, okay, on this example after insurance bets are made, the dealer does not have a ten underneath, so playing goes as applied before. "