A hot wallet is a crypto wallet connected to the internet — a phone app, a browser extension or an exchange account. The opposite is a cold wallet, which keeps the keys on an offline device.
Why a hot wallet at a casino anyway
Because play assumes movement. A deposit, a withdrawal and the next deposit happen in minutes, and fetching a confirmation from a cold wallet every time is not realistic. A hot wallet is the right tool for that — when it holds only playing money.
Three rules
1. A separate wallet for play. Not the one holding your investments. That way the damage from a breach or malware is limited to the budget you were risking anyway. 2. Two-factor authentication everywhere it exists — both in the wallet and on the casino account. 3. Clipboard checks. The most common malware swaps a copied address for the attacker's. Always check the first and last four characters before sending.
What that does for a playing budget
A separate hot wallet is also one of the most effective limits possible at a crypto casino at all. If the wallet holds a week's budget and you do not top it up, the limit physically exists — unlike the limit settings at Estonian casinos, which crypto houses mostly do not have. See the self-assessment and the limits guide.
Related
The seed phrase applies to both wallet types the same way: whoever knows it owns the money.