Free Insurance
The current Las Vegas Advisor POV has a coupon for up to $25 of free insurance (for a $50 bet) at Slots of Fun. Anyone have any idea of the percentage advantage that this provides for the player. Thanks!
The current Las Vegas Advisor POV has a coupon for up to $25 of free insurance (for a $50 bet) at Slots of Fun. Anyone have any idea of the percentage advantage that this provides for the player. Thanks!
...would be 31% of your bet, less the expected loss for the thirteen waiting bets (until the dealer shows an ace). So for a -.3 HE it would be worth 27% of your bet, and for a -.6 HE it would be worth 23% of your bet. Hope this helps.
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...would be greater than for that of BS play, because we would only be taking insurance in favorable situations, and we are not (on average) playing at a disadvantage throughout the "waiting" bets. Value of the coupon would be >33% of your bet.
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There are a couple of tings that aren't clear to me. First, I presume that this is a one-time only coupon. That is, you get Free Insurance once, and then you surrender the coupon.
Now, are you allowed to add your own money to the coupon. If you have a bet of $80, can you put up the coupon for $25 but add $15 of your own money? I presume that if you had only bet $40, that the coupon could be used for a $20 insurance bet.
How you should play the coupon depends a little on the answer to these questions, but also your bank and betting strategy. Is $55 a very big bet for you, or a very small bet for you.
If you were a BS player (not a counter), and you were inclined to flat bet $50, then the possession of this coupon would give you an edge in the game. Here is how we figure it. You have a 1/13 chance of making an insurance bet. You win the Ins bet a little more than 4/13 of the time. When you do, you make 2 * base bet. So the extra edge is 1/13*4/13*2 = 8/129 = 4.7%. As you can see, this is much better than the house edge at almost any game.
I use hi-lo and typically take insurance at a TC around +3. If I make my max bet (which is generally around $50) would it be worth taking insurance if the TC falls below +3 given the free insurance coupon and considering the fact that the coupon can be used one time. Thanks for the thoughts on the subject.
There are several different considerations here. If you were flat betting $50, then I think it find it more useful to use the coupon when you don't have an edge on Insurance, and to buy insurance money with your own money if you do.
Consider this example. You have two possible insurance bets to make: With one, the Probability of winning is 34%, and with the other it is 35%. Suppose you decided to use the coupon for one, and bet your own money for the other. Two choices as to where to use the coupon: for the 34% bet or the 35% bet. If you compute your total return from both, I think you will see that you would do better by using the coupon on the 34% bet, and making a conventional insurance bet for the 35% bet.
Similarly consider another example. A negative EV insurance situation with a P=30% and a positive with p=35%. Two choice: One is to use the coupon for the 35% bet; the other is to use the coupon for the 30% bet, and your own money for the 35%. I think you will see that it is better to use the coupon for the 30% bet.
However, I was assuming that all the wagers were $50. In your case, some of them will be smaller. We can run some numbers but my strong gut feeling is that you should use the coupon for the full amount. Don't waste it if you can only make a $15 or $20 insurance bet.
The simplest strategy may be to flat bet $50, and use the coupon for first Insurance opportunity where you would not buy insurance with your own money. This may not be perfectly optimal, but additional improvements aren't going to get you that much more money.
Do they pay you $25 if you win the insurance bet? Or does the coupon only realize full value if you lose the insurance.
"The simplest strategy may be to flat bet $50, and use the coupon for first Insurance opportunity where you would not buy insurance with your own money. This may not be perfectly optimal, but additional improvements aren't going to get you that much more money."
I dont understand how one $25 insurance coupon could possibly justify a reason to place max bets in negative counts while waiting for insurance.
If the coupon has a value of $25 regardless of the bet,then I would bet the minimum during negative counts and use the coupon. If not, I would simply bet the max ($50) at +3 and use the coupon.
