Slot – A Slot is a Placeholder That Waits for Content to Be Added to it

A slit, hole, or narrow opening. Also: position, assignment, berth, slot, time, window.

A slot is a dynamic placeholder that either waits for content to be added to it (passive slots) or calls out to the scenario to add it to the page (active slots). The content a slot holds comes from a repository via an action or targeter. The scenario dictates how that content will be presented to the user.

In an electromechanical slot machine, a “taste” refers to the small amount that is usually paid out over several pulls. This is in contrast to the erratic payouts of old mechanical games, where a single poor result was often enough to drive a player out of business. Today, most machines are programmed to pay out a minimum of $1 per spin or higher. In some cases, the taste will be higher if the machine has been tilted, or if there is any other kind of technical fault that may have caused an error.

Unlike the Sittman and Pitt invention of 1891, Charles Fey’s slot machine had three reels rather than five, allowing for a much larger number of possible combinations. He also redesigned the symbols to include diamonds, spades, horseshoes, hearts, and, of course, liberty bells. Three aligned liberty bells was the highest win, and earned the Liberty Bell slot machine its name. A plaque marks the location of the San Francisco workshop where Fey first created his revolutionary machine in 1899.