A slot is a narrow opening or groove in something, like the hole that you put coins in to make a machine work. It can also refer to a position in a schedule or program. You can book a time slot for an activity a week or more in advance.

In football, a slot receiver is the position in the wide receiver corps that lines up close to the line of scrimmage. This is usually a smaller, faster player who has excellent route-running skills. They can run routes up, in, and out and are often responsible for blocking. Because of their unique position in the offense, these players are crucial to any team that wants to be successful.

The term slot is also used to refer to an expansion slot on a computer motherboard, typically the location where additional memory can be installed. These slots are designed to accept a standard PCI, AGP, or ISA card, which are then connected to the main board via a bridge connector. In addition to providing extra storage space, these slots allow the motherboard to expand its functionality without adding more external components.

On a computer, a slot is also a place where you can assign a specific value to a resource to determine whether or not it needs to be reserved for other users. The value is called a “slot cost.” In some cases, it can be beneficial to reserve a particular slot for certain tasks, especially when the workload is high. In this case, it can be more effective to use a load balancer to distribute the workload evenly across multiple slots.

In casinos, slot machines are games where players insert cash or, in “ticket-in, ticket-out” machines, a paper ticket with a barcode into a slot on the machine. The machine then activates, spinning the reels and rearranging the symbols to create combinations that pay out credits according to its pay table. The payouts vary based on the number and type of symbols displayed. Most slot games have a theme and bonus features that align with that theme.

Slot recommender analyzes your historical slot usage and buckets it into percentiles. Then, it compares your slot usage against on-demand pricing to find recommendations for reducing costs. You can see these recommendations in the Chart options pane and in the Model slot performance section of the details pane. You can filter by project to see detailed recommendations. You can also view this data in a table, which is useful for reporting purposes. This information is also available in the Slot insights API.