Jamie M. Gold was born on August 25, 1969 in New York City, New York. However, he was raised in Paramus, New Jersey where he graduated from Paramus high school in 1987. He then went on to get a bachelor's degree in 1991 from the New York State University at Albany before going on to study entertainment law at UCLA.

Gold had actually been working in the entertainment business since he was 16-years-old when he was an intern for the J. Michael Bloom and Associates talent agency. Before he was 21-years-old Gold was a talent agent in Malibu, California. However, he quickly moved into management and production. Some of his clients included Lucy Liu, Felicity Huffman and Brandy and Natasha Henstridge.

It should not come as any surprise though that Gold entered into the poker world and began playing regularly in poker tournaments in 2005. After all, his mother was an avid poker player and his grandfather was a champion gin rummy player. So, when Gold began to work with 2 former World Series of Poker winners: Johnny Chan and Chris Moneymaker on an up and coming television show it was only natural for Gold to want to also learn how to be a good poker player. Herein is where Chan began mentoring Gold in how to play poker. However, it was not until 2005 that Gold actually began participating in poker tournaments on a regular basis.

In April o 2005 Gold won his first major, no limit, Texas Hold 'Em tournament at the Bicycle Casino in California. Herein he won $54,255. He then went on to play in other tournaments in California over the next 12 months. Gold managed to have monetary finishes in 7 of these tournaments. However, even with these poker successes Gold continued to work his regular job and only play poker in his spare time.

Just before the 2006 World Series of Poker tour Gold entered into a business relationship with BoDog.com Entertainment. BoDog wanted to find celebrities who would play in the World Series of Poker's main event under the BoDog banner. In exchange for this BoDog would pay their entry into the main event. Crispin Leyer claimed to help with this in exchange for half of Gold's winnings but his deal was later reneged upon.

Nevertheless, Gold managed to have a significant chip lead beginning on day 4 of the 2006 World Series of Poker tour. He then went on to outlast 8,722 other players, eliminating 7 of his 8 opponents, including Paul Wasicka. This win earned him in excess of $12 million, which made him the first person to earn in excess of $10 million in tournament poker. During the main event Gold snacked on blueberries, which he later called "brain food," making the joke that this was the reason he won. Then right after the tournament he called his father to tell him about his winnings since he could not attend because he had Lou Gehrig's disease. Gold pledged to use his winnings to make his father more comfortable but he died 4 months later.

Unfortunately, Gold's win received some criticism though. One reason for this is because he would continuously tell his opponents whether he was weak or strong, sometimes he would tell the truth but at other times he would lie. Secondly, he received criticism for showing his opponents his actual hand during play. At one point he even caused an opponent to be uncertain enough to fold to Gold.

After Gold won the 2006 World Series of Poker tour and reneged upon his supposed deal with Leyser he was taken to court by Leyser. On August 22, 2006 the case went in front of Chief District Court Judge Kathy Hordcastle who froze payment of Gold's winnings in lieu of the dispute. In December U.S. District Court Judge Roger L. Hunt ordered that the $6 million that was yet to have been paid out be placed into an interest-bearing account. He also indicated that more than likely Leyser would win his case. This is because Gold had mentioned this deal on a radio show on Rounder's, "The Poker Show." As such, Gold and Leyser managed to resolve their dispute outside of the courtroom on February 7, 2007. Neither side will divulge the amount of the settlement though.

A month before this settlement, on January 25, 2007, BoDog ended their business relationship with Gold. They stated that the reason they ended this relationship was because they were ceasing their offline marketing initiatives in the United States. Some people are skeptical of this and believe that it was because of Gold's court case since BoDog still retained David Williams, Josh Arieh and Evelyn Ng.

Personal Quote

he WSOP victory itself wasn't even the most satisfying part of that whole experience. I was just really happy with the way I played all the way through. The Final Table worked out really well for me and I played well, but I'm happiest with the consistency of my WSOP performance right from the first day of the Main Event.