The once and future poker room

I was at the Venetian today. I wasn't sure whether they had moved the poker room back to its original location after a few months in a temporary spot next door at the Palazzo, so I swung by the old/new location. It wasn't open for business, but they're obviously getting close. A sign in the temporary room at the Palazzo says that the refurbished room will open on the morning of Wednesday, September 5.

Oddly, it appears to have been renamed the "Sands Poker Room" rather than the "Venetian Poker Room." I have no idea why they would do such a dumb thing. I mean, I understand that the Venetian is where the Sands used to be, and that the corporation that runs it is Sands. But why put that name on the poker room? Makes no sense to me.

Anyway, here's what it's looking like:

Addendum, September 3, 2012

I was just talking to my very clever girlfriend about this odd "Sands" thing. She posited that this is in anticipation of legalized online poker. I.e., the Sands Corporation is going to operate an online poker site, and they want their brick-and-mortar poker rooms around the world (just two so far that I know of, Venetian and Macau, but one would guess that they have other long-term expansion ideas) to be recognized as part of the same entity. This makes sense, as we anticipate that Nevada-licensed online poker rooms will allow use of their brick-and-mortar casinos for online account deposits and withdrawals, so there is some benefit to being sure people recognize them as extensions of each other. I find this to be a pretty plausible hypothesis.