A slot is a narrow, elongated depression, groove, notch, or aperture, especially one for receiving something, such as a coin or a letter. It can also mean a position in a sequence or series, such as the eight o’clock slot on the TV schedule. To provide a slot is to assign it, or to put someone into a slot.

A slot can also refer to a machine in which coins or paper tickets with barcodes are received and inserted into a reel to spin. The reels then stop and rearrange the symbols, paying out credits based on a paytable. Some slots have a theme, such as a movie or game, and the symbols and bonus features align with that theme.

During the 1960s, electromechanical slot machines began appearing in casinos. Unlike mechanical slot machines, these electronic devices had more than one pay line and were programmed to distribute credits based on the number of coins inserted. In the 1970s, video slot games were introduced. These machines had multiple pay lines, advanced graphics and audio, and more ways to win.

In computing, a slot is an empty spot in a computer system that can be filled with an expansion card (such as an ISA or PCI slot), or used for memory. Slots are typically located on the motherboard, but can be found in other components as well, such as a hard drive or CD-ROM drive. Some computers have slots for removable media, such as flash drives or digital cameras.

To play a slot, a player inserts cash or, in “ticket-in, ticket-out” machines, a paper ticket with a barcode into the machine and activates it by pressing a lever or button (physical or virtual). The machine then reads the barcode or scans the cash to determine if a winning combination has been made. If so, the machine dispenses a ticket with a barcode that corresponds to the winning combination and pays out credits according to the paytable.

Many slot machines have different payouts based on the number of paylines. Some have as few as one pay line and as many as fifty, while others have more than ninety different ways to win. The paylines can run vertically, horizontally, diagonally, or any other way the reels are spun. Most slots have a themed design and feature icons that reflect the theme.

When a slot is identified, it is mapped to a slot type. A slot type defines how the bot will process the information available in the slot. You can use regular expressions to create a custom slot type, which is useful for matching patterns in utterances. For example, you might want to use a regex pattern such as [A-Z]d$ to match flight numbers and handle cancellations. You can add a slot type by clicking Add Slot Type in the left pane. You can also edit an existing slot type by selecting it in the list and then changing its name or selecting the drop-down menu next to it.