A slot is a narrow opening or hole in something, especially in a machine or container. A slot in a schedule or program is an open time that can be booked or used for activities.
In a video game, a slot is an area where the player places a character or object. The size of a slot can vary depending on the rules of a particular game.
When a player inserts cash or, in “ticket-in, ticket-out” machines, a paper ticket with a barcode, a symbol or symbols line up on a pay line and earn credits based on the machine’s pay table. The symbols on a machine are aligned with its theme and can include classic objects such as fruits, bells, and stylized lucky sevens.
Players may also place additional coins in the slot to activate special features. Often these feature bonus rounds where the player can win more credits by spinning the reels. These bonus rounds typically require the player to choose specific symbols to unlock them, and the choice is made using a touchscreen or keypad on the machine.
Slot is a part of the Qt component programming model, along with signals and slots, which together form a powerful mechanism for creating independent components. In practice, emitting a signal that connects to several slots is approximately ten times slower than calling those receivers directly with non-slots (because of the overhead associated with locating the connections, safely iterating over them, and marshalling parameters in a generic fashion). However, this is still significantly faster than most other types of code calls.