I kinda thought the deposit is what showed, yeah, we’re serious about this deal, at which point they would really reserve necessary space. But without the deposit, you’d say, “nah, these guys are jokers, screw them.”

But I guess if it’s a super-huge reservation, it’s not quite the same? Because if the cancellation fee was 150ish k … then the booking musta been way more than that, right?

I think you’re a little off here Dan. The sequence of events as set forth in the Sun article is:

1. SLC and Venetian sign contract to reserve space. The upshot of this is that Venetian will no longer reserve that space for any other customer.
2. SLC misses deadline for $26k deposit.
3. SLC cancels reservation.
4. As per the contract, SLC cancellation triggers a cancellation fee of $173k.
5. Venetian tries to collect $173k fee and fails.
6. Venetian sues to enforce.

All pretty standard stuff.