I have noticed several times lightlord's unresponsive and payment delay.
All time there is issue I think the issue arises when the site make loss and cant afford the payment of hunters and/or gamblers. The issue of hotwallet might be true but it is difficult to trust as this type of staying offline as well as payment delay is usual fact.
I do not know if that is the case here. As far as I recall, there is a post from lightlord from a few years ago (I am sure I can find it again if needed) in which he disclosed his cold wallet addresses. The last time I checked, he still owned a significant amount of BTC (although he moved them to a new wallet in the meantime).