A slot is a place in a program, schedule or sequence into which something can fit. For example, a hair salon might have time slots available for customers.

The word “slot” also has the meaning of a narrow opening, such as a hole or notch, for receiving something, such as a coin or a letter. In sports, to slot means to kick a ball between the posts for a goal.

Charles Fey was the inventor of the modern slot machine. His design allowed automatic payouts, which increased the frequency of wins. His slot machine was also the first to offer multiple pay lines and symbols, such as diamonds, spades, horseshoes, hearts, and liberty bells. Three aligned liberty bells were the highest win, giving the game its name.

When a player spins the reels of a slot machine, the probability that they will land on a winning combination is determined by the probabilities printed on its pay table. This is why it’s important to read the pay table before playing. It can help you determine the type of game you’re playing, including its volatility, which is the likelihood that it will pay out more frequently but in smaller amounts than other games.

In database technology, a slot is an identifier for a position within a data set. In PostgreSQL, a slot is used somewhat differently. A replication slot has an identifier that is unique for each replication instance in the cluster and persists independently of the connection using it.