A thin opening, hole, or groove in something, as in a door or window. Also called slit, vent, or aperture. A slot is where you can drop letters or postcards at the post office. A slot can also refer to a position in a series or sequence, such as a coveted job or a place in line for a service. The figurative sense of “drop (something) into” is from the idea of sliding something easily into its proper position, which is also from the same root as the verb. The noun is attested from 1747, and the idiom from about 1900.

A slot is a container for dynamic items on your site, and it can either wait for content to be added to it (a passive slot) or call out to the repository using a targeter to fill it. A slot can contain media-image or text, but it cannot be both text and an Object.

Historically, when slot games were simpler and had fewer reels and symbols, the various pay tables were printed directly on the machine. But with more and more different types of slot machines and bonus rounds available, it’s not always easy to keep track of everything that goes on in a game. That’s why a lot of players just plunge right into playing a slot without bothering to check out the pay table, which is typically accessible from an icon located close to the bottom of the game screen.