Zoltar is my NFL football prediction computer program. It uses a neural network and a type of reinforcement learning. Here are Zoltar’s predictions for week #21 (conference championship games) of the 2025 season.

Zoltar:     broncos  by    6  opp =    patriots    | Vegas:    patriots  by  5.5
Zoltar:    seahawks  by    6  opp =        rams    | Vegas:    seahawks  by  2.5

These predictions do not take into account the season-ending injury to the Broncos quarterback Bo Nix.

Zoltar theoretically suggests betting when the Vegas line is “significantly” different from Zoltar’s prediction. I use a conservative threshold of 4 points difference in the beginning and end of the season, and a more aggressive threshold of 3 points in the middle of the season. For the final two weeks of the season, I use 3 points as the threshold, and so:

patriots     at      broncos: Bet on Vegas underdog broncos
rams         at     seahawks: Bet on Vegas favorite seahawks

Theoretically, if you must bet $110 to win $100 (typical in Vegas) then you’ll make money if you predict at 53% accuracy or better. But realistically, you need to predict at 60% accuracy or better in order to take into account logistics and thiings like manual data entry errors.

In week #20, against the Vegas point spread, Zoltar went 1-0 using 3.0 points as the advice threshold. Zoltar liked the underdog Bears (+4 points) against the favorite Rams (-4) and the Bears lost by only 3 points, 34-31.

For the season, against the spread, Zoltar is 48-30 (~61% accuracy).

Just for fun, I track how well Zoltar does when just trying to predict just which team will win a game. This isn’t useful except for parlay betting. In week #20, just predicting the winning team, Zoltar went 2-0, with 2 games too close to call. Vegas was a perfect 4-0 at just predicting the winning team.

My prediction system is named after the Zoltar fortune teller machine you can find in arcades. I am not embarrassed to admit that I like old animated cartoons, at least those that are aimed at an adult audience as well as children.

Right: A scene from “The Weather Lady” (1963) episode of the Rocky and Bullwinkle show. The citizens of Frostbite Falls buy a fortune teller to predict the weather. The machine is stolen by Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale.