1. A narrow opening in a machine or container that receives coins, tokens, or other objects. (Compare with slit.) He slotted a coin into the slot and dialled. 2. A time, place, or position reserved for a planned aircraft operation. (Compare with air traffic clearance, and also with slat, which refers to the narrow notch on the tips of certain birds’ primaries, during flight, that helps to maintain a smooth flow of air over their wings.)
In the days of live casinos, players dropped coins into slots to activate games for each spin, but that changed when bill validators and credit meters replaced cash. Today, players insert cash or paper tickets with barcodes into the slots of a casino game, and they can earn credits depending on the paytable and symbols aligned with the game’s theme. The Random Number Generator that powers a slot ensures that each spin is completely random, and that previous results have no bearing on future outcomes. This makes strategies that rely on patterns in past results obsolete.