A narrow opening in a machine or container for inserting coins or other objects. From Middle Low German slot, from Old Norse slod.
A slot (plural slots) is an area of the screen of a slot machine where symbols appear to make up a winning combination. Depending on the game, symbols may include fruit, bells, stylized lucky sevens, or other images related to the theme. Most slot games have a specific theme and pay tables that describe how many symbols must appear to win.
Unlike traditional mechanical machines, modern slot machines are typically electronic and have multiple reels. Each reel has a set number of stops, and each symbol appears on a particular stop with a certain probability. Using microprocessors, manufacturers can assign different weights to each symbol, allowing them to create appearance patterns that appear random to the player but are based on actual probabilities.
Slot is also a term used in computer networking to refer to a reserved space on a motherboard for expansion cards such as an ISA, PCI, or AGP slot. In a central flow management system, slots are assigned to individual queries based on their capacity demands and are re-evaluated as their dynamic DAG changes to ensure that all slots have the opportunity to run at any time.