Yes, but the blag post talking about verifying emails says this:

First and foremost, nobody has to verify their email address. If you're paranoid about this sort of thing and would rather jump off a cliff than tell reddit your email address, you'll still be able to log in, vote, post crazy comments, submit links to bunker supplies and tinfoil hat designs, and everything else that you're used to.

In fact, we think (and hope) that normal, non-spammy users won't even notice any change. The only ones who should have a problem are people who submit one crummy link after another, as often as the site will let them. We're going to start limiting them to a certain number of crummy links per hour (and per day, per week, etc).

I would assume that someone who has paid for reddit gold probably has reddit's interest in their mind and so it would have nearly the same effect proving that you are not a spammer as would registering an email address.