You checked in on time, made it through security, found your gate, queued to get on board, struggled with the overhead lockers and finally settled back into your seat – but then the captain says, “We’re waiting for a slot.” What is a slot and why can’t we take off as soon as we are ready?
The slot is an empty space or position where something can be added. Often it is an area in which an object or piece of data can be stored or located within a larger system. The term is also used to refer to a position in the scheduler of a computer, where it represents the relation between an operation in the machine’s processor and a pipeline which executes that instruction.
Online slot machines use a computer program to determine winning and losing combinations. The program runs through thousands of numbers each second until it stops once you press the spin button, at which point the numbers will correlate with symbols on the machine’s reels and the outcome will be displayed on the screen.
Most slot games feature a pay table that displays the different possible combinations and payouts for each of them. The table may be an actual printed page with columns and rows or it might be a more interactive display on the machine itself that shows combinations and payouts on the screen. The highest combinations are listed on the top of the table and the lowest combinations are displayed at the bottom of it.