A thin opening or groove in something, especially a piece of metal, such as a door. Also used as a verb, slot means to assign or put something in a slot.
In a casino, slots are usually grouped by denomination and style of machine and many have an info or HELP button that explains payouts, play lines and special features. High limit slots are often separated into rooms or’salons’ and may have their own attendants.
Players insert cash or, in “ticket-in, ticket-out” machines, a paper ticket with a barcode into a slot on the machine. The machine then activates a set of reels to rearrange the symbols and, when a winning combination is formed, pays out credits according to the paytable. Symbols vary depending on the theme, with classic objects such as fruits, bells, and stylized lucky sevens common in many games.
A pay table is a chart that displays what combinations payout and which bet sizes correspond to each prize value on a particular machine. It is important to understand how to read a pay table because a machine that pays one way might not do so another time. This is because each machine has a different random number generator and the odds of hitting the same sequence at exactly the same split-second are very slim.