Imagine you have checked in for your flight, made it through security, found the gate and queued to get on board. Once you have your seat and settled back, the captain comes on and says “We are waiting for a slot.” This means that they have to wait until another plane takes off before they can depart. Obviously, this can cause significant delays and burns of unnecessary fuel. It is therefore a good idea to have central flow management at airports.

In a slot game, you insert either cash or, in ticket-in, ticket-out machines, a paper ticket with a barcode into a designated area on the machine. This activates the reels that then arrange symbols according to a paytable. When a winning combination appears, the player earns credits based on the payout value displayed on the pay table. The pay table may also list special symbols or bonus features associated with the slot machine.

The slot receiver is a position in American football that allows the fastest players on the team to stretch the defense horizontally and vertically, running short routes such as slants. This is different from a boundary receiver, who can only go in one direction or the other, and gives teams like New England the ability to spread the field by moving quick guys around. This also helps them keep the defense off balance and makes them less likely to be able to run man coverage on their best receivers.