A slot is a position in a series, sequence, or arrangement. A slot can also refer to a particular time or place. For example, a time slot may refer to the time at which a flight will take off or land. The term can also refer to a particular job, office, or position in an organization or hierarchy. For instance, a person might have a “slot” as the chief copy editor of a magazine. Finally, a slot can also refer to an area of the field of play in ice hockey.
In statistics, a slot is a region of a distribution that overlaps with other regions. For example, a slot might include all the points on a line segment or circle. This is the opposite of a gap, which is an empty space in the distribution.
On a slot machine, the slot is the area on each reel that displays symbols when the reels stop spinning. Modern slot machines use a random number generator to determine the sequence of numbers and correlate it with where the reels stop, creating billions of combinations each spin.
The pay table, or information table, for a slot machine is usually displayed on the face of the machine, above and below the area that contains the reels. The tables are often made up of different colors to make them easier to read. In addition, the pay table will usually explain what symbols can be lined up to create a winning combination and how much you can win if they do so.