What is a Slot?

A narrow depression, perforation, or aperture; a slot in a door or wall. A slot in a computer or other electronic device into which data can be stored. (in linguistics) A position within a construction into which one or more morphemes fit, with respect to the rules of morphology. (in aviation) An allocated time period for a plane to take off or land, as authorized by an airport or air-traffic controller.

A slot in a casino is an opportunity to win big. While table games require more skill and strategy, slot machines are fun and fast and offer some of the biggest lifestyle-changing jackpots in the gaming industry. There’s a lot to know about slots, from how they work to the different types of machines and bonus features. We’ve put together a primer on the basic terminology to help you understand what all the jargon means.

When you play a slot, you insert cash or, in ticket-in, ticket-out machines, a paper ticket with a barcode into the designated slot at the bottom of the machine to activate the reels. They then spin and stop to rearrange symbols, which pay out credits based on a predetermined payout table. Symbols vary by game but classic symbols include fruit, bells, and stylized lucky sevens. Most slot games have a theme that aligns the symbols and bonus features with the overall concept.

You can also map an utterance to a custom slot type using a regular expression. For example, if you want your bot to understand that when someone says “rooms required”, it means they are looking for flights with two or more stops, you can create a custom slot type that matches the pattern [A-Z]+[0-9]+$. You can then use this slot type to trigger actions that respond to the utterance.