A new wind is blowing through Japan's amusement poker industry, driven by Waitinglist Inc., a DMM Group company. Through app development, content production, poker DX (digital transformation), and the establishment of a new league, the company is taking a comprehensive, unprecedented approach to create a new poker experience. We spoke with company CEO Kim Hongsung about the new business ventures and future outlook.
Four business divisions centered on poker
-We understand that Waitinglist Inc. currently operates with four business divisions. Could you briefly explain each one?
The first is the "Waitinglist Division," which develops apps for users and venues. The second is the "Content Division," which produces poker-related content.
The third and fourth divisions—the "DX Division" and the "Tournament & League Division"—are about to fully launch. The DX Division aims to enhance the winning experience by combining hand history data with live poker, while the Tournament & League Division will work on organizing competitions and leagues to further energize the amusement poker industry.
-Could you tell us about the apps for users and venues?
To put it simply, what we provide is an app that maximizes the in-venue experience. Users who download the app can search for poker spots based on address or tournament information, order food and drinks while at the venue, and manage their personal performance records. A major strength that sets us apart from other services is the location-sharing feature. Users can see at a glance which venue their friends or favorite influencers are playing at.
On the venue side, operators can use a variety of features to support customer acquisition and operations—such as posting venue information on the user app, managing user check-ins and table/seat information, and managing food and drink offerings. As of March 2025, approximately 210 venues have signed up for the free plan, which is a very strong result. With new features and updates planned in sequence, we expect the number of participating venues to continue growing.
Renewing the poker experience through both digital and real-world initiatives
-What specifically is the newly established DX Division working on?
The DX Division is developing digital features that users can experience as extensions within the Waitinglist app. Currently, we're focused on developing an "app-in-app" within Waitinglist that offers more advanced functionality. One major feature we plan to release allows players' hands (hole cards) to be displayed and recorded.
Hand display itself is already possible today using dedicated tables that read RFID-tagged cards. However, due to technical limitations, the card information that's read must be manually entered by a person, which creates extra work. The new system we're developing will allow this information to be shared smoothly with apps and other platforms.
When poker play is digitized and quantified this way, your own stats (play performance) and those of other players become clear, enabling deeper and easier analysis. In other words, it expands the ways people can enjoy poker.
-The league and tournament business sounds interesting too. Is that more of a real-world initiative?
For the league, it's easiest to picture something like Japan's J.League in soccer or the M.League in mahjong. The league structure may change going forward, but the main league is planned to feature six teams with corporate sponsors competing over a five-month season. We're also considering hosting sub-leagues such as a student league and a women's league.
The tournaments will be elimination-style, but top finishers won't just receive prize money from sponsoring companies. We're also designing a system where points are awarded based on competition results, and those at the top of the points ranking can then qualify to compete in the league.
Significant synergy with DMM
-Where do you expect to see synergy with DMM going forward?
The league and tournament business is exactly the result of synergy with DMM.
To make leagues and tournaments thrive, it's essential to have sponsor companies provide rewards to players. However, even though amusement poker is gaining momentum as an industry, it hasn't penetrated the public consciousness at the level of soccer or baseball. The reality is that there are still very few sponsor companies willing to provide funding for poker competitions.
When it comes to acquiring sponsors, we believe DMM's brand power will be a huge asset. DMM has a track record of launching and growing a wide variety of amusement-related services from scratch. With over 60 businesses under its umbrella, its network is also extensive. We've heard that DMM's business partners have shown great interest, saying things like "We can feel confident working with the DMM Group, given their deep understanding of the amusement industry," and we're optimistic about gaining more sponsors going forward.
Further developing the amusement poker industry
-Could you share your future outlook?
At Waitinglist, driven by our desire to spread poker throughout Japan with overwhelming speed and momentum, we've set our mission as "accelerating the 'I want to play poker today' moment." The poker population in Japan is currently estimated at around 2 million. It's been growing rapidly especially in the past two or three years, and there's no doubt this population will continue to grow. And we want to accelerate this movement even further.
One of our major goals is producing star players. The word "star" carries two meanings for us: skill and influence.
In terms of skill, we want to see more Japanese players succeed internationally—and ultimately produce a champion at events like the WSOP, one of the world's largest tournaments held in the United States. The leagues and tournaments we operate will also contribute to developing such strong players.
In terms of influence, we want to develop popular players who are supported by the general public. League and tournament matches are planned to be broadcast on DMM TV. We'll also work on producing content that follows the growth journeys of promising up-and-comers, building fan bases for the players. Eventually, we hope to produce figures with such star quality that they receive CM offers from major companies.
-We hear you also have some bigger ambitions...
You mean hardware development. The dedicated tables that read card RFIDs cost around 1.5 million yen, which is expensive, but we're envisioning the development of more affordable hardware.
Specifically, instead of the conventional method of embedding RFID sensors under the table, we're considering a method where the dealer's shuffled deck is scanned from above. If the order can be read while the cards are still stacked, the rest is just a matter of dealing them to players in that same order—so each player's hand becomes immediately known.
If we combine this with technology that automatically collects chip information, we'll be able to provide a digitized poker experience without the need for expensive equipment. If this becomes reality, it should have a major impact on the amusement poker industry.
We want to preserve the essential fun of poker while enhancing the experience value through technology, and grow our player and fan base by strengthening the entertainment aspect. With this vision in mind, we plan to continue growing our amusement poker business going forward.
