A narrow opening or groove, especially in a machine or container. A hole that you put coins in to make a machine work. Also, a position within a group, sequence or hierarchy. He was slotted into a management role.

A fixed payout value multiplied by the number of coins per payline that you are betting on a video slot. The odds of winning the jackpot are higher if you play with more coins.

The area of the ice hockey rink directly in front of the goaltender and between the face-off circles is called the slot. Wingers and centers often shoot from this area, because they have the best chance of scoring without a deflection and have a clear view of the net.

When a slot pays out big wins, it is described as hot. A slot that is not paying out is said to be cold.

Psychologists Robert Breen and Marc Zimmerman found that people who play video slots reach debilitating levels of involvement with gambling three times as fast as those who play traditional casino games.

A nudge machine allowed the player to press a button to nudge the reels one at a time. This was an expensive option, however, and only offered a limited number of nudges before the reels were locked in place again. Nudge machines are not as common as they once were. In modern slot machines, a symbol may appear on the payline only once per spin and it is programmed to weight particular symbols differently.