Virgin Hotels Las Vegas, former restaurant tenant caught in legal fight over failed sportsbook

JC Hospitality, one of the operating partners behind Virgin Hotels Las Vegas, and Money, Baby!, a now-defunct restaurant at the off-strip hotel-casino, have been embroiled in an ongoing legal battle since July 2022, litigation records show. The two parties are caught in a legal feud over who is responsible for costs associated with the failed restaurant-sportsbook concept.  

Money, Baby! was billed as a “first-of-its-kind” concept by the hospitality firm Clive Collective that housed the property’s sportsbook in a nightlife atmosphere when the former Hard Rock Hotel reopened in 2021 under new ownership. However, the property opened without a sportsbook license and Money, Baby! closed in late June 2022. 

According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, JC Hospitality, acting as the landlord, sued Money, Baby! in a business court case filed in the Eighth Judicial District Court, alleging the restaurant had breached its contract for failing to pay a roughly $845,000 construction lien.

According to JC Hospitality’s July 2022 complaint, when the property sent Money, Baby! a notice of default, the restaurant shuttered, further breaking the terms of the lease. 

Lawyers representing the property point out that at the time of closure, restaurant operators failed to return $150,000 in event deposits for events no longer being put on at that time, according to filings. A separate pending lawsuit against the restaurant alleges it failed to return a $70,000 event deposit to the Dermatology Education Foundation after its sudden closure.

Money, Baby! sportsbook

However, the lawyers for Money, Baby! argue that the sudden closure and the financial repercussions were because of JC Hospitality’s actions. In their counterclaim, they allege that executives with the company told the general contractor that it would “pay for all necessary overage” to get the job done by the summer 2021 opening, without the restaurant operators present.

The Review-Journal report quoted Adam Shelton, a legal consultant for the team behind Money, Baby!, who said that the nexus of its cross-complaint is the failed sportsbook concept within the restaurant. He detailed that the group’s damages exceed $400 million, including loss of investment, loss of capital raised, loss of earnings, damages from the construction liens, and other estimates.

Shelton said: “It was clear that the C-suite of JC Hospitality led the Clive (Collective) group to raise capital for the purposes of placing the sportsbook inside, in a ‘first-of-its-kind’ concept. Thereafter, through a series of really unfortunate mishaps, because they couldn’t follow through on all the promises they made to this group, they damaged this group to the tune of over $400 million.”

According to the report, the court will hear motions to dismiss the case from new parties, including Juniper Capital Partners, subsidiaries, and former executives with JC Hospitality and the capital firms Richard 'Boz' Bosworth, Chris Cosenza, and Gary Scott, on July 24th, according to the docket.