Scotland (www.ladbrokespoker.com) tops the poker (www.ladbrokespoker.com) league with Ladbrokespoker.com, and players bagged the Ladbrokes VIP party for less than the price of a pint.

Four years ago, Edinburgh placed second in a Ladbrokes-commissioned poll to find the city with the most successful poker players. Now, it seems that the Scots are at the top of the 'pots' again when it comes to play after Scottish players scooped three recent wins on Ladbrokes Web site.

First, David Knowles from Aberdeen, Inverurie beat 790 players to win a ten-day Caribbean cruise, then Richard Sinclair -- a player from West Lothian -- came out on top of the annual Multi Table Leaderboard bagging $36,000 worth of tournaments, including a trip of a lifetime to Las Vegas in July (first prize last year was nearly $8m).

Now the Kiln Bar in Scalloway, The Shetland Islands, has made it a hat trick by finishing top in Ladbrokes first-ever Pub Poker league. And this weekend they will be enjoying the fruits of their labour with a VIP party to be hosted by actor and TV presenter Norman Pace - one half of the comedy duo Hale and Pace.

The Kiln Bar beat over 500 pubs nationwide into submission over a five-week period late last year, including South London celebrity pub hangout The Duchess, led by Lock stock and Two Smoking Barrels (poker film) actors Dexter Fletcher and Jason Stratham and will this weekend welcome Norman Pace. They scored 12,740 points in the five-week online tournament, 390 points clear of their nearest rivals, to secure The Kiln Bar its victory and a celebrity hosted pub knees up to remember.

Norman Pace, seen recently in the Ricky Gervais Extras Christmas special said: "I'm really excited about going to the Shetlands. I think our party is going to go down in the history books of the Islands. Pub regulars will enjoy a fantastic poker tournament with professional dealers, tournament direction and a generous supply of refreshments courtesy of Ladbrokespoker.com. The winner will also get to play me in a head-up duel!"

Ladbrokes MD Edward Ihre said: "The Ladbrokes pub league proved a great success and it would seem from recent results on the site that the Scots are definitely top of the 'flops'! We're really pleased with the number of pubs that participated and hope that our pub poker kits will enable them to host their own tournaments in the future."

Ladbrokes provided kits consisting of tables, cards, chips and a how-to DVD guide to pubs with teams of over 15 players that represented their pub in the tournament for future live games.