A narrow notch, groove, or opening, as in a keyway in a piece of machinery or a slit for a coin in a vending machine. To slot something means to put it into such a slit or opening, as in She slotted the CD into the player.
A slot is also a position in a group, sequence, or program. People can book time slots a week or more in advance.
When you play a slot, you pay for each spin. You can choose which pay lines to bet on, and some machines have bonus symbols that steer you away from the normal spins and open up special rounds with extra prizes or money. Bonus symbols may also unlock other types of slots, such as progressive jackpots or free spins.
You can also judge a slot’s volatility (how often it pays) by its payout table, which lists the total amount you can win on each pay line. Lower volatility games tend to have smaller wins but more frequent ones, while higher volatility machines are less frequent but provide larger prizes.
You can use reservations to purchase and allocate slot commitments, so that different groups of workloads don’t compete for the same resources. If a reservation uses up all its available slot commitments, the jobs in it are billed at their regular slot usage. In some cases, jobs that exceed a reservation’s capacity are allowed to borrow slot allocation from other jobs.