Nothing like a knowing idiot

I'm playing at a full $5 table. Hands are dealt, dealer has a 10 showing. Play proceeds, some stand, some hit and bust, some survive. Player to my immediate right stands on some hand, dealer busts, begins to pay the survivors, including this guy. Pays him $5, sees a $2.50 chip, not in his betting circle, not in side bet circle. She asks the player, "Is this for me?" assuming it was a side bet for the dealer, or a tip. Player says "No, that was insurance. You don't have blackjack, so take it." Dealer takes pink chip and puts it in the rack.

I won't say anything if I see a dealer error in someone else's favor (although I do point out when I am paid wrong, either too much or too little), but I will speak up if I see the dealer make a mistake that costs someone else money. So I pipe up. "You can't buy insurance on a dealer 10. Only on an Ace. Shouldn't he get that insurance bet back?" Dealer agrees, gives the guy back his $2.50.

"Oh," says he, "in Las Vegas you can buy insurance anytime you want. That must be different here."

Ensues my usual conversation about insurance: it's only a bet on the presence of a 10 under the dealer's ace, there are 4 ten-value cards in the deck for every 9 non-10 cards, insurance pays 2 to 1... do the math... it's a bad bet.

"Well," he continues, "in Las Vegas you can buy insurance whenever you want. I can look it up on my phone if you want to place a little side bet."

I would have taken him up on it if it was about the insurance bet itself. It was, in fact, a wager about whether or not you can insure against a dealer blackjack REGARDLESS OF THE DEALER'S UP-CARD. You wouldn't buy insurance against a dealer 6 (unless there is a fifteen of spades included in the deck...), and of course the odds of a dealer 10 covering an ace is only 1 in 13, making it an absurd wager.

But if someone is stupid enough to play 6:5 blackjack, might not a casino offer "universal insurance"?

After all, anyone who says they only buy insurance when they have 20 might just see the wisdom of insuring it against ANY dealer up-card.

So when I go out to Las Vegas in February, is this something I might see? Are people THAT STUPID?

That's out of the norm, but if you play long enough you will see it all. I have seen people standing on AA thinking its a 21, seen people sitting at a BJ table and "raising" 4X after being dealt AQ, seen people claiming 6:5 games are better because the BJ pays more and debating with the dealer after being told wrong. Have seen many bizarre things, these are just some I can think of off top of my head.

so did you take the bet with the other player?

Long story short, I once insured against a dealer's Ten and won.


I've never heard of insurance being offered as a normal bet against a dealer's Ten. Only once has a dealer messed up and offered insurance when he had a T up.

Perhaps there's a bet (that pays 2/1) that the dealer will get 20 or 21 (or BJ).
** copyright (c) Charles Patrick 2015 !! if someone else hasn't thought of it before! **

There was a bet called super insurance that paid 10 to 1 when dealer had a ten up.It didn't last long maybe 6 months. It was on a few tables at Mohegan Sun and was invented by a poker dealer who worked there.

Quote: andysif

so did you take the bet with the other player?

It was a bet on whether or not there was such a play in Vegas. So no, on the off chance that someplace was offering it, or, more likely, let this bozo place such a bet, since he was smart enough to figure it out on his own. I mean, you can double a hard 20 if you want, right?

I had one player tell me single zero roulette was the casinos way of cheating players by not offering all the possible numbers to win on, which is why he would only play double zero tables.

Quote: darkoz

I had one player tell me single zero roulette was the casinos way of cheating players by not offering all the possible numbers to win on, which is why he would only play double zero tables.

Sadly, he probably believes that.

Many of these foolish theories are perpetuated by dealers.

I heard a dealer tell a prospective insurance purchaser that he should "only insure a hand he was not going to hit, since if you were going to take a card anyway, it made no sense".

Just this week a dealer told someone who didn't want to hit his fourteen against a dealer ten that "80% of the time when you play wrong like that, you cause the next round of cards to be all wrong."

That's why I like the "obviously bad plays" like hitting a twelve against a dealer three. Especially when I'm sitting third base and take that ten that would have busted the dealer twelve. I played right, and hate to lose, but when I get a comment or a dirty look it gives me some sense of satisfaction to know I'm getting it from someone who doesn't have any idea what he's talking about.