KUALA LUMPUR: Available at a bookstand closest to you, it has the latest, most up-to-date statistics and odds on every major European league match.

Called Soccer King and published every Thursday for the last five years, it is the magazine that furnishes gamblers with odds on teams and games in the English, Italian, Spanish, German and French leagues.

Major tournaments like the World Cup and European Championships are covered, too.

For example, the odds on the Arsenal-Aston Villa game held on March 1 stood at 1.40 for a home win, which means a gambler would have won 40 sen on top of every RM1 he bet.

Besides odds, the book, which costs RM5, also has feng shui-based predictions for punters, who are known to be a superstitious lot.
"Fire destroys metal. Expect an easy win for the hosts. Arsenal are in unbeatable form at home and it is impossible for Aston Villa to prevent a loss," read the feng shui prediction for the game.

Unfortunately for gamblers and for Arsenal, the prediction turned out wrong as Villa held the Gunners to a draw.

Though the magazine is in both English and Mandarin, it nevertheless appears to be aimed mainly at the Mandarin-speaking market as most of the advertisements and notices are in Mandarin.

Published by Penang-based Soccer King Sdn Bhd, it is sold in Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Hong Kong and China.

The main advertisers include online gambling companies Bet365.com, Ladbrokes and Mansion88.

Soccer King's "services" are not limited to publishing odds. It also has a weekly SMS (short messaging service) match prediction contest where punters who can accurately guess the results of 11 matches stand to win RM20,000.