Whatever Jamie Gold was or wasn’t as a so-called Hollywood agent, one thing seems assured.

The Malibu, Ca., poker player who took first place and $12 million in the main event at this year’s just-completed World Series of Poker, is already one of the most controversial winners ever.

And that’s not the good news.

A poker industry insider confided, “There have been some great final tables and final table stories the last several years, but this guy is something else.”

This was said with a frown and a shake of his head.

Another source spoke of Gold “barging around with his body guards like he was someone special.”

Gold doesn’t compare well with good ol’ boy legends such as Doyle Brunson, or younger success  stories such as Daniel Negreanu who remain very willing to spend time with fans.

One of the first things Gold did after his big win was have nothing to do with the WSOP publicists. He hired his own Beverly Hills pr outfit, which has distinguished itself during recent days by not returning calls from almost everyone.

Gold was one of the crowd of “no names” (players without a previous high  profile in the poker world) who played their way to the final table. Collectively, they benefited from the lottery-like-situation created by the endless promotions that made seats in the $10,000 buy-in  finale available for less than $50 in many cases.

That’s great for Internet poker players who might have played few live games in their life, but saw a chance to strike it rich because they got lucky in one of the online satellites. And it is probably also great for Harrah’s Entertainment whose big thinkers view the World Series as one of their most successful brands.

It drew a lot of spending power to the Rio.

There were 8,773 entries in this year’s main event, a situation that maximizes the luck factor and minimizes the skill factor. As things turned out, it was the “no names” who were having all the luck, sometimes playing and winning with hands that left poker pros gasping, saying, “I can’t  believe he  played that.”

This final table anonymity probably did not work to the advantage of ESPN which sold the final table as a pay per view event.

I wonder how many potential viewers passed up the chance to pay about $25 for the pay per view package (that did NOT include showing hole cards) because they did not see a recognizable face in the crowd?

It’s one thing to watch Phil Hellmuth and Johnny Chan  or Brunson and Phil Ivey  go heads-up. It’s another thing entirely when the action involves people you’ve never heard of.

There are clearly different yardsticks for measuring success at an event attracting more than 30,000 individual poker players from all over the world.