A narrow notch, groove, or opening, as in a keyway in machinery or a slit for a coin in a vending machine.
A slot is a dynamic placeholder that either waits for content to be fed into it (passive slot) or actively calls out for it (active slot). A slot can be filled by a scenario using an Add Items to Slot action or by a targeter. Slots and renderers work together to deliver content to the page; slots manage the contents, while renderers specify how the content should be presented.
The earliest mechanical slot machines were powered by levers that moved reel-stop arms to change the position of symbols on each reel. These levers were activated by a button on the machine’s front panel or, in ticket-in, ticket-out machines, by inserting cash or paper tickets with barcodes into the appropriate slot on the machine. When the reels stopped, they rearranged the symbols into a winning combination.
Modern electronic slot machines are programmed to weight particular symbols and their combinations, based on the number of stops on each physical reel. The number of possible combinations is far greater than the original 22-stop arrangement, and the odds of a winning combination are much higher.
A slot can also refer to a position in a group, series, or sequence. For example, a time slot on a radio or TV broadcast is the time period during which the programme is scheduled to air.