a narrow notch, groove or opening, as a keyway in a piece of machinery or a slit for coins in a vending machine

A slot is a space in which something can fit. For example, the car seat belt slots easily into place. This word can also be used as a verb to mean inserting something into another thing: The coin slotted into the hole in the wall. A computer program has a number of slots or spaces in which different activities can take place. If a program is running too slowly, we can try to speed it up by moving tasks to other slots.

The pay tables of slot games are listed on the face of the machine above and below the area containing the reels, or inside a help menu on video machines. The pay table lists the credits players will earn if they match a winning combination of symbols on the pay line of the machine. The amount of money won is based on the probability that each symbol will appear during a given spin. The probability that a particular symbol will appear is based on its frequency on the physical reel, but microprocessors in modern slot machines allow manufacturers to weight individual symbols so that they have a varying probability of appearing on each spin. This increases the likelihood that a winning symbol will be displayed, but also means that some symbols may never appear at all.