Insurance in blackjack

In blackjack there is an option for thr player to take out insurance before the dealer of the game checks his hole cards. This option is available only when the dealers upcard is an Ace 

The player who intends to take insurance can also raise the amount up by half of his original bet. Then the insurance bet is placed in a special side of the table board, this special side usually contains the words "Insurance Pays 2:1"

The player that is taking insurance is actually betting that the dealer is going to have a 10 value card in his hole card. This 10 value card can be 10 points card, a Jack, a Queen or also a King

For example , let's say that the player is betting on 10$. the dealer deals the cards, and the player's hand is 19, and the dealer shows an Ace. The player takes insurance by betting on more half of his original bet, which means more 5$. The dealer check his hole card and sees that he has a 10 value card, in this case the player loses his 10$ bet on the blackjack hand, but he wins the insurance bet, so he gets a ratio of 2:1 on his 5$ which means he recieve 10$.

So as you can see the insurance is meant to give you your money back if you are sure that you are going to lose with your hand in the regular blackjack game, and the dealer have an Ace at first.

But lets take another example, the start of the game is the same, the player's is betting 10$, the dealer is having an Ace, and the player put a insurance of 5$, than the dealer doesn't have a 10 value card in his hole card, and the player also lose the game. The player losses more money in this round.

Another option is to win the regular game and loose the insurance, in that case you win more money than you lose, but you also win less money than you could have done.