A slot is an area of the ice hockey rink that is right in front of the goal and between the face-off circles. It is a prime scoring zone for the offensive team because the center and wingers have an excellent straight-on view of the net when shooting. Because of the advantage that the offense gains in this zone, defenders are careful to make big hits on any player who enters the slot.

A game of slot involves a mechanically operated reel machine with symbols that pay out credits based on the paytable. A player inserts cash or, in “ticket-in, ticket-out” machines, a paper ticket with a barcode into the slot and then activates the machine by pushing a lever or button (physical or on a touchscreen). The reels spin and, when the symbols line up according to the paytable, the player receives credits. Symbols vary from game to game, but classics include fruit, bells, and stylized lucky sevens.

Another use of slots is in software development. In C++, slots are a way of providing multiple access points to private methods within an object. A signal emitted by one component can trigger a slot to be invoked in an arbitrary class, which allows for more flexible code and easier debugging. For example, if a process is running out of memory, the developer might add a new slot to the object in order to continue processing data. This is an alternative to stopping the process and freeing up memory, which could cause the application to stop responding.