A slot is a narrow notch, groove or opening, such as one in the face of a door, the top of a typewriter key or the slit for coins in a vending machine. The term is also used for a position in a group, series or sequence. In gambling, slots are a popular choice because they allow players to bet small amounts of money for big payouts. However, before you play a slot, you should understand how it works.

To play a slot, you insert cash or, in “ticket-in, ticket-out” machines, a paper ticket with a barcode into the machine. Then you activate the machine by pressing a lever or button (physical or virtual), which spins the reels. If a combination of symbols lines up on the pay line, you receive credits according to the pay table displayed on the machine. Many modern slot machines also have bonus features that you can trigger by landing specific scatter or wild symbols on the reels.

In a Web site, a slot is a dynamic placeholder that either waits for content to be added to it (passive) or calls out to a renderer to fill the slot with content (active). A slot is part of the content management framework in ATG; slots and scenarios work together to deliver content to pages; renderers specify how the content should be presented. See the Using Slots chapter of the ATG Personalization Programming Guide for more information about slots and their properties.