In the absence of fortune tellers and crystal balls, many sports bettors will be sifting through a plethora of numbers that could provide some insight into what the correct bet will be for this year's Super Bowl.
According to one model, you're better off taking the Seattle Seahawks over the New England Patriots this time around. That's what the team at Analytic Investors recommends.
The Los Angeles-based asset manager has been using its knowledge of numbers and statistics to make predictions about what the best bet is for each Super Bowl. Their analysts' day job is to manage some $12 billion worth of client assets, in both separately managed client accounts and a mutual fund product. But in their spare time, they analyze each team in the NFL during the regular season and look at how they perform each week against the spread. In other words, not just whether a team wins or loses, but how they perform after being handicapped by bookmakers.
Read More Game on for swanky in Boston and Seattle
As a result of their rigorous analysis, they've concluded that the Seahawks are the better bet for Sunday's game. As of Friday night, the spread for this year's Super Bowl was Patriots (-1), which means that in order for a bet on the Patriots to win, they'd have to win by more than 1 point.
This model has been put to use over the last 11 Super Bowls and has been correct in nine of them, leading to an 82 percent success rate. The system failed in Super Bowl 46 in 2012, when the Patriots were favored by 3 points and lost outright to the New York Giants, 21-17. The other failed test happened last year, when the Denver Broncos were favored by 2 points and got pummeled by the Seahawks 43-8.
The caveat here is that with just 11 observations, the sample for success and failure is somewhat limited.
So, let's geek out; this is how Analytic Investors calculated the numbers. After analyzing each team's regular season performance against the point spread, they figured out each team's level of outperformance. To think of it in market terms, it's how much "alpha," or outperformance, over a benchmark index each achieved. During the regular season, both the Patriots and Seahawks delivered outperformance against the spread, although to different degrees. The Patriots outperformed expectations to a far greater degree than did the Seahawks.
The analysis goes on to discover that both bettors and bookmakers tend to expect this same level of outperformance to continue into the postseason. In simple terms, it means that gamblers may be giving too much credit to the Patriots because of their previous success, and thus are relatively more "expensive." The premise behind Analytic's Super Bowl recommendation is that you want to find the "cheaper" play, which is the Seahawks.
So, whether or not you're a Seahawks or Patriots fan, if your goal is to make money, Analytic Investors has tried to come up with an objective way for you to choose your bet. It just so happens this time, the numbers suggest Seattle … although authors Matthew Robinson and Chris Lardieri at Analytic Investors do state that their analysis does not account for the effects of any deflated footballs.
Disclosure: CNBC's sister company NBC Sports broadcasts the Super Bowl.
Read More Roger Goodell speaks on state of the NFL