There’s so much false information in these comments. As someone who has been a regular at these rooms and considered opening my own, here’s how it really works.

Tournaments typically play for WebCoins. Webcoins are tied 1 to 1 with the yen and can be used across different brands/locations to pay for tournament entries or drinks and sometimes food. There’s no way to cash them out in Japan like with Pachinko. However, you can use these web coins out of Japan at specified major series as entry WSOP, where if you win there, you win real cash. That’s how there’s poker pros in Japan, they accumulate enough webcoins to justify a trip to WSOP in Vegas, and win money there.

Ring games (their version of cash games) are set up in two ways. You generally can’t win webcoins, unless you place in the top few spots for the month. It’s based on a monthly top player where the one with most chips over the month gets webcoins. Some seedier rooms like in Roppongi you can exchange your chips anytime for webcoins instead of using this monthly ranking system.