In his 35-plus years of professional life Derek Llambias has run casinos in London and Las Vegas.

Yesterday he might just have taken on his greatest gamble so far, in being appointed the CEO of Rangers.

As things stand the job is undoubtedly one of the poisoned chalices of British football: guaranteed to bring grief, aggro, abuse, slander, and very little reward. In this context, some claim that Llambias is just the man for it.

The Scottish FA, looking on at this Rangers saga with a mix of incredulity and apprehension, are due to bring the club to account at the end of January for the involvement of Mike Ashley and Llambias in its affairs. In appointing Llambias as CEO - and this is Ashley's doing - the Sports Direct supremo has just aimed a fresh Harvey Smith in the direction of Scottish football's weary governors.

Ashley, who owns an 8.29% stake in Rangers, now commands a remarkable power at the club. For a relatively small shareholder to be able to remove previous directors, install his own place-men, and now fill the key position of CEO at the club, on the surface looks pretty questionable. In having Rangers over a barrel it is hard to see how Ashley and Llambias's doings do not flout the SFA's rules about dual influence at football clubs, given Ashley's ownership of Newcastle United.

The lawyers, as usual, are due to have a field day with this. There is some legal speculation doing the rounds that the SFA will not be able to pin Ashley down, and that their rules about dual ownership/influence at clubs in two different football orbits will not be enforceable. We'll see about all that.

Llambias is an intriguing figure. He is a member of Ashley's trusted inner circle, afforded the same status in Ashley's eyes as Dave Forsey, his long-time associate and CEO at Sports Direct. There was surprise when Llambias suddenly resigned his role as managing-director under Ashley at Newcastle United in June, 2013, but the two men never fell out over it. It was said that they remained close, and events at Ibrox appear to have borne this out.

All that said, and as much as Llambias is about to be hated by some Rangers fans, in fact he has elements in his track record which some might argue augur well for the Ibrox club.

When Llambias was first appointed as Newcastle United's managing-director in 2008 he was charged with turning the club's disastrous financial performance around, and making it fiscally ship-shape, both of which he did with considerable success.

Llambias, while fighting with Alan Shearer and Kevin Keegan in a Newcastle soap-opera fit to match anything at Rangers, turned a £34m operating loss into a £4m loss, and went on to steer the St James Park club towards marginal profit. Whatever other ills are said to beset Newcastle United under Ashley, sober housekeeping and self-sufficiency have been his key aims for the football club, which is exactly what Rangers need after their carnage of recent years.

Llambias was detested by many Newcastle fans - so that's another plus he has going for him as he parks his horse at Ibrox. Like Ashley, he has no time for bleating or for voices of the past, as in ex-players or former pros who always seem to know what is best for their former clubs.

Llambias, like Ashley, looks at the cold, hard figures, and at Rangers he will not give two tosses for what a Richard Gough or a John "Bomber" Brown thinks about it all. This is heinous for some, or highly refreshing for others.

Yet one of Llambias's obvious dangers to Rangers, again going on his track-record, is his partisan outlook when it comes to appointing football managers. At Newcastle the so-called "Cockney Mafia" image was reinforced by the managerial or technical appointments of Joe Kinnear, Dennis Wise and Alan Pardew, all of whom arrived under Llambias and were variously loathed by the Toon Army. If he has any wisdom Llambias might tread more carefully at Rangers.

With Ally McCoist going sooner rather than later, the Ibrox club will need a new manager. Someone like Derek McInnes, with knowledge of Rangers, Scottish football, and with a good pedigree, would seem ideal, but Llambias might well have other ideas. He will almost certainly look to England, and "mateyness" with either himself or Ashley might even be a factor in his pursuit.

In the case of McInness, in any case, it may be a gross insult to both him and Aberdeen to even quote him for the looming Rangers vacancy. Many figures in football will cast their eyes towards Ibrox and think that, of all times, this is not the season to be being there.

On Monday we will learn more about Llambias's appetite for the fray when he stands before the Rangers AGM. In the main these tend not to be as "stormy" as are always made out, though Llambias, McCoist and others will face some heckling and cat-calling. Llambias will have to convince the body of the kirk that he means well for Rangers and is capable of turning the club around.

The evidence over Ashley's activities in Glasgow remains scant. With a personal wealth of £3.75bn, and Sports Direct's most recent turnover being £2.76bn with pre-tax profits of £240m, the reason for his involvement with something as minor as Rangers is unclear. Even the Rangers retail deals Ashley secured via Charles Green seem absolute buttons compared to much else in his empire, so his motives for Rangers are to be debated.

Llambias can go some way to enhancing Ashley's reputation at Ibrox over the next 12 months and more. A successful, healthy Rangers is what every supporter wants. But can Llambias deliver?