text: (CNN) -- A Russian bookmaking company is offering to pay 100,000 euros for Paul, the prognosticating octopus who correctly predicted Spain's win in the World Cup. 
  
  "100,000 euros (about $129,800) was our starting price," Oleg Zhuravsky, co-owner of Liga Stavok -- "Bet League" in Russian -- told CNN. He said the offer could be increased if need be -- "We are bookmakers, after all." 
  
  Paul currently lives at the Sea Life Center in Oberhausen, Germany. Zhuravsky said a representative of the center's public relations firm has told him the offer has been received and "they are studying it." 
  
  However, the firm, Dederichs Reinecke and Parner, said it declined the Russian offer and that Paul will not be sold to anyone. 
  
  "Seriously speaking, we want the octopus for a number of purposes," Zhuravsky said. "First, to see whether he can indeed effectively forecast the results of the football games. Secondly, Paul could become a good mascot, a good symbol for my bookmaking companies. And thirdly, he has an international fame like perhaps no other animal across the world does these days, and I'd love to be able to move him to Russia. 
  
  "Both kids and adults, I'm sure, would love to see him here," he said. "We are even prepared to put him in the Moscow City Aquarium if that were the condition." 
  
  He said Paul would be given "the best food" and officials would let him forecast the results of the Russian domestic football tournament, "which, I think, is a more difficult task than predicting the World Cup," he said. "This would also boost the profile of the Moscow Aquarium." 