By admingottpayA narrow notch or opening, as in a keyway in a machine or a slit for a coin in a vending machine. Also: a position in a group, series, sequence, etc. (From Middle Low German slit and Old High German sloot, cognate with Dutch slot and German Schloss).
A small part of a container or other device that is used to hold something else, such as a screw or plug. If you slot something into it, it fits in readily or easily. He slid the CD into the player. The car seat belt slotted into place.
In the past, casinos offered slot machines as a diversion for those not interested in playing blackjack or poker. They were easy to use and required no skills. Now that slots are more than 60 percent of all casino profits, they have become an integral part of the gambling experience.
Modern slot machines are designed to look like the older mechanical models, but they work differently. They have a random number generator that makes thousands of calculations per second. Whether you win or lose depends on which symbols line up with the pay line, a horizontal line in the center of the screen.
A slot is a dynamic placeholder on a Web page that either waits for content (a passive slot) or calls out to a repository to fill it (an active slot). Slots and scenarios work in tandem with renderers to deliver content, and slots have many different types of content.