Two poker players involved in a lawsuit over a World Series of Poker (WSOP) prize have ended their court battle.

The Associated Press (AP) reported that 2006 WSOP main event winner Jamie Gold has agreed to settle a dispute over the tournament’s $12 million grand prize.

In a statement released to the AP, Gold and Los Angeles-based TV producer Bruce Crispin Leyser agreed the matter should be resolved “without litigation,” the news agency reported.

“Jamie always intended on sharing his winnings with Crispin,” the statement said. “Jamie and Crispin are happy to report they have fully settled this matter. They are pleased to be closing this chapter and look forward to continued success.”

Gold, a Hollywood talent agent before he became a poker professional, defeated 8,772 players to win the main event at the last WSOP tournament, last summer in Las Vegas.

The two formerly-squabbling poker players did not say how much money Leyser would receive, the AP reported.

Gold had already received $6 million, half of his take from winning the world’s largest poker tournament.

The other $6 mil had been resting in a bank, on the orders of a judge, to await resolution of the dispute.

Leyser sued Gold last year, saying that he and Gold had an agreement to split Gold’s tournament winnings and that Gold reneged on the deal.

In the lawsuit, Leyser alleged Gold verbally agreed in July of 2006 to split his WSOP winnings 50-50 in exchange for Leyser helping him find celebrities to play in the WSOP main event while wearing labeled attire of online poker room, casino and sportsook Bodog (www.bodog.com)

Loving the celebrity exposure, Bodog paid the $10,000 WSOP entry fee for Gold.

Leyser said he fulfilled his end of the deal by getting “Scooby Doo” film star Matthew Lillard and “Punk’d” TV star Dax Shepard to wear the attire, and Gold refused pay Leyser half his $12 million prize.

Gold countered that he promised to share his winnings only after Leyser had gotten celebrities to play, reducing the arrangement to a gift, rather than an oral contract.

Leyser claimed he had a voicemail from Gold on the final day of the tournament, in which Gold promised to pay Leyser ”your half.”

Gold said in his legal response to the lawsuit that he only intended to make a gift of some of his winnings, and it never amounted to 50 percent.

After winning the WSOP, Gold became a paid spokesman for Bodog, the popular online gambling site that recently relocated from Costa Rica to Antigua, and is owned and operated by outrageous and eccentric Canadian multi-billionaire Calvin Ayre.

After Leyser filed the lawsuit, however, Bodog fired Gold.

Bodog denied that the lawsuit or its ensuing tangential negative publicity for the online gambling site had anything to do with Gold’s dismissal, but few in the poker world believed it.