The Kanazawa Guild venue reopened on 12 April 2025 as SPARKL, according to the Japanese Wikipedia entry on Akiba Guild1. The entry states that Kanazawa Guild opened in 2018 alongside Shibuya Guild, and that it was renewed and reopened under the SPARKL name on that date1.
Kanazawa Guild is part of a group of venues run by HunterSite Co., Ltd., which also operates Akiba Guild, an amusement casino in Soto-Kanda, Chiyoda ward, Tokyo1. The company was established on 8 December 2006, has capital of 10,000,000 yen, closes its accounts every February, and lists its representative director as Katsuki Shiraishi1. Its stated business lines include amusement operations, consulting, event planning and staffing, online operations, and the promotion of poker1.
Akiba Guild itself opened in Akihabara in 2007 as a shop combining a maid cafe with a casino, and operates under the same fuzoku dai-go-go (No. 5) entertainment license as a game center1. It opened in 2007 in the basement of the Watanabe Building at 3-8-17 Soto-Kanda, Chiyoda ward, Tokyo, where blackjack and Dobon could be played1. It moved at the end of September 2007 to the eighth floor of the Daini Marushin Building at 3-15-7 Soto-Kanda because the premises were too small, added a seventh-floor space with four poker tables in 2008, and moved in April 2011 to the fourth floor of the Kogure Building at 1-11-6 Soto-Kanda, where it is listed now1.
The entry says the venue offers poker, baccarat, blackjack, craps, roulette, progressive poker and Daifugo1. In 2009 it entered a sponsorship tie-up with the online poker site PokerStars.net and has run official Japanese qualifiers for poker tournaments held at City of Dreams in Macau, China and at Paradise Casino Walkerhill in Seoul, South Korea1. Nagoya Guild and Ikebukuro Guild opened in 2016, Shibuya Guild and Kanazawa Guild in 2018, and Niigata Guild in 20191.
The entry does not report the address of the SPARKL venue, the games it offers, its opening hours, its license status, or whether the Kanazawa Guild name is retired entirely1.
What it means for players
Japan does not license commercial casinos, so venues of this kind operate as amusement facilities under the No. 5 entertainment license used by game centers, not as gambling establishments1. That is the framework Akiba Guild is described as operating under, and the entry gives no indication that the Kanazawa reopening changes it1. For anyone in Ishikawa or visiting Kanazawa, the practical change reported is the name and the renewal of the venue, not a change in what the premises are legally permitted to do1. Players who knew the room as Kanazawa Guild will find it trading as SPARKL1. Details such as entry requirements, table limits, hours and the games on offer at the Kanazawa site are not reported in the entry1. For background on how these venues fit into Japan's rules, see Can I Gamble in Japan? and Casinos and Integrated Resorts in Asia: Who Can Enter, What You Can Play and the Rules Inside.
What happens next
No further steps, dates or announcements are reported1.
Sources1 sources
- アキバギルド - Wikipedia, ja.wikipedia.org
