What Is a Slot?
A narrow notch, groove, or opening, especially one for receiving something, as a coin in a slot machine or a hole for a key in a lock. Also: an assignment or position in a sequence or series, as a time slot on a schedule or a berth in an airplane. Also: a niche or vacancy, as in an office or job. See also: berth, billet, gap, slot, window, vacancy.
A conventional mechanical slot machine has reels with pictures printed on them and a pay line running across the center of the view window. When you pull a handle, the reels spin and when they stop, whether you win or lose depends on which pictures line up with the pay line. Modern slot machines, however, work on a different principle. They use a central computer to control how often they pay out and what their odds are of hitting the jackpot on any given pull.
To be a good slot player, you need to understand how each symbol works and how the payouts for different combinations are determined. Unlike the old mechanical models, which were programmed to make certain symbols appear more often than others, modern slot machines are programmed to have a random distribution of different symbols. The odds of each pull are calculated by the computer from the number of different possible combinations of symbols on each reel and how many of them land on a particular reel during any given spin.
The symbols used in a slot game may vary, but they are usually themed to fit the overall theme of the game. Some of the most popular include classic playing card symbols like J, Q, and K as well as the standard fruit symbols that are so closely associated with slot games. High-paying symbols are usually more thematic and might include a pirate ship, a treasure chest, or a parrot.
When a job holds onto slots for an extended period of time, it can prevent other jobs from receiving their fair share and causes delays in execution. To avoid this, you can increase your slot usage limit by adjusting the value in the Slot Usage field or by deleting unused slots. Excess slots are not billed to you directly, but they will be reflected in your overall capacity.
When you set up a new job, the system assigns an initial amount of slots to it. When the job runs, it uses up some of those slots and returns any excess to the pool of available slots. Eventually the excess slots are allocated to other jobs in proportion to their share of the total available slots. You can track the use of these slots by viewing the Job Execution Detail report. The reports are displayed in the Job Detail page of the Job Manager and the Job History page in the Admin Tools section of the Portal. You can also access them from the Default Reports tab in the Admin Toolbar.
