Prosper Masquelier

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Prosper Masquelier (born March 19, 1981 in Montpellier, France) is an entrepreneur, businessman, television producer and creator of online games.

He is the creator of the first French TV series dedicated to poker, Le Tournoi des As, which first aired on Paris Première in January 2015.

After joining the Partouche group in 2006, he contributed to the development of Partouche Interactive online poker and gambling, then worked on the Partouche Poker Tour in 2007. The poker tour had over 50,000 participants making it France's largest tournament of its kind. After leaving the group in 2009, he launched PokerXtrem.fr, an ISPT company in partnership with Laurent Tapie. In 2014, he approached the CEO of GiFi about launching Marketluck, which would be France's first free online poker website. In August 2016, he launched the Bravoloto application that became a big success across Europe with more than 6 million players.

Early life[]

He was born on March 19, 1981 in Montpellier, France. He is the son of Marlène Partouche, a member of the Partouche family and owner of Brasserie du Théâtre in Montpellier, France; and Jean-Marc Masquelier, director of the Palavas-les-Flots and Grande-Motte casinos, owned by the Partouche group.

After graduating from high school in Montpellier he enrolled at the Cours Florent acting school in 2001. After training for a year at Cours Florent he continued his studies in London.

Career[]

Masquelier returned to workein the family-owned brasserie in Montpellier before participating in a French reality TV series called Nice People, produced by So Nice Productions and Endemol and broadcast on TF1. This series ran from April 26, 2003 until July 5, 2003. The show concept is based on the story from the film, L’Auberge espagnol (known as Pot Luck in Britain and Euro Pudding in the US). In the show, Masquelier shares a house with eleven other young people from different European countries in a villa on the French Riviera. The show attracted nearly 5 million weekly viewers. The final episode aired on prime time on Saturday April 26, 2003 and attracted nearly 7 million viewers.

After Nice People, Masquelier began work as a television producer and created Sogimage Productions company. The concept of the company was to organize concerts with ex-reality TV stars to be performed in French overseas territories. These events were sponsored by Orange, the French telecommunications company. Presented by Elodie Gossuin from 2003 to 2004, these concerts drew an average audience of 5,000–7,000 people.

On January 22, 2005 Masquelier introduced the first French TV show dedicated to poker. Produced in partnership with PartyGaming this was the first of its kind on French television. Twenty-two episodes were made. The show received sponsorship from PartyGaming, an English company operating in the gambling sector.

In 2006, Masquelier joined the Partouche group and became the director of the newly created Partouche Interactive.

In parallel, Masquelier launched the Charity Poker Festival, a poker tournament that brought together cinema celebrities including from Hollywood. Tournament participants included, Salma Hayek, Edward Norton, Adrien Brody, Tim Robbins, Woody Harrelson and Dennis Hopper. Created in 2008, the Charity Poker Festival awarded one million dollars to a celebrity's charity of choice. The tournament was held at the Palm Beach Casino in Cannes, and was won by Woody Harrelson and Alice Taglioni. Their prize money went to the Enfants et Santé child cancer foundation and Oasis Preserve International.

In 2009, Masquelier left the family company to start Full Fun, an online poker company in partnership with Georges Djen, the director of Live Poker. With new French legislation authorizing online gambling, Full Fun applied for a license to operate its online poker website. On July 26, 2010 the Full Fun company received approval from ARJEL and launched the PokerXtrem.fr website. The site went live on October 1.

At the end of 2010, Masquelier teamed up with Bernard and Laurent Tapie to create the ISPT (International Stadium Poker Tour) production company. ISPT is the largest poker tournament in the world organized exclusively in football stadiums. The ISPT draws poker players from across the world and holds the Guinness World Record for the largest poker tournament, held at Wembley Stadium on June 5, 2013.

At the end of 2011, Masquelier approached the Socodem group about merging PokerXtrem.fr and Mypok.fr. The two websites were merged on August 1, 2011 with approval from ARJEL (French online gaming regulatory authority). At the end of 2013, Masquelier approached the JOA group, the third largest casino operator in France about operating the Mypoke.fr website in partnership.

In 2015, he met Philippe Ginestet, the founder and owner of the Gifi retail chain. Together on August 15, 2016 they launched the Bravoloto app. Three months later, nearly one million people had downloaded the app, which led to nearly 200,000 daily users. To boost its development and visibility, Masquelier partnered with French comedian, Rémi Gaillard. The result of this partnership with Bravoloto, "I Give You Money", was posted on Gaillard's YouTube channel. The video created buzz with over 15 million views.^[1]

The partnership between Bravoloto and Rémi Gaillard included a charity operation to raise money for the SPA (the French SPCA). People could help raise money for the animal protection society by playing the Bravoloto app. For each grid played, Bravoloto promised to donate 1 centime (euro) to the SPA. In total nearly 200,000 euros were raised through this operation.^[2]

Masquelier continued to support animal welfare through Bravoloto by contributing funds to Gaillard's "ANYMAL" foundation. He is a co-founder of ANYMAL.

In August 2018, he entered into history by sending the first mojito into space. The video delivered more than 1 million views.^[3]

On November 1, 2018 the Bravoloto app had over 6 million members across 8 European countries (Germany, Spain, France, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Danish, and Belgium).

References[]

External links[]

• Prosper Masquelier at the Internet Movie Database