By Adam Ulick | May 21, 2009

PartyPoker.Net is headed to Las Vegas this summer, but you won’t be finding them in the Amazon Room at the Rio for the World Series of Poker. The popular online gaming site may have sponsored the Series in the past, but since pulling out of the US online poker marketplace, they have shifted their sponsorship sights on something else: professional darts and billiards tournaments.

Party Poker became the title sponsor of the Las Vegas Desert Classic darts tournament in 2006 and this year marks the third time the site will be sponsoring the event, which will be held at Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino from July 1st-5th. The tournament is organized by the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) and has been a part of their tournament tour since 2002. The event will be televised live on Sky Sport in the UK and recaps and highlights of the event will air on Fox Sports in the States. For those curious to see a darts tournament in action, tickets are available to the general public. Tickets can be purchased at a rate of $22 per day or $55 for a five-day pass and can be pre-ordered through Ticketmaster or Mandalay Bay.

The PDC was established in the United Kingdom in 1992 and not only offers several tournaments all over the world, but also has its own world rankings system based on players’ success in various events. Other notable stops on the PDC tour include The Grand Slam of Darts held in Britain, the World Grand Prix of Darts in Dublin, Ireland, the US Open in Atlanta and the PDC World Championships at Alexandra Palace in North London.

Party Poker also has a strong relationship with the billiards community, sponsoring the World Pool Masters at the Riviera Casino in Las Vegas earlier this month. The event was won by 33 year-old Englishman and reigning World 10-Ball Champion Darren Appleton. PartyGaming will also sponsor the upcoming World Cup of Pool to be held in Manila in September of this year.

Not only will the poker and gaming company be sponsoring several upcoming sporting events, they will also be hosting them in the Party Poker Sports Stars Challenge. The Challenge is a poker tournament featuring sports celebrities as well as online qualifiers from Party Poker. The reigning champion of the event is European Poker Tour hostess Kara Scott, who is the only female to ever final table the event.

Some of the sports stars on tap for the event, which is scheduled to play out from May 29th to June 1st, will include soccer stars Roland de Boer, Thomas Helmer and Jan Mølby, boxers Agnieszka Rylik and Sven “The Phantom” Ottke, and darts legend Phil “The Power” Taylor.

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