Slot is a slit, hole or narrow opening, such as a keyway in machinery or a slit for a coin in a vending machine. It can also mean a position or place, as in a series or sequence. “I’ll be there in a few slots.”
A person who plays a slot is a gambler who is hoping to win money from spinning the reels of a video or casino game. The chances of winning depend on the type of slot and the rules that apply to it.
Traditionally, slot machines were viewed as mere distractions, offering little skill or excitement beyond the chance of a big payout. They were pejoratively associated with bored wives killing time while their husbands raked in the dough on the gambling floor. But with advances in technology, slot machines have become more sophisticated – so much so that cheaters have had to invent new ways to manipulate them. From plugged nickels to Jenny’s Shaker, to jamming the gears with a shim, the evolution of slot machines has inspired an equally innovative array of tools for beating them.
Dixon and colleagues have analyzed data from a large-scale longitudinal study to identify variables that predict dark flow during slots play. Their results show that problem gambling participants may not be able to experience flow in everyday life because of their mind-wandering, but that they can achieve this state during slots play. The results are consistent with the theory that slot play is characterized by exogenous reining in of attention, which induces an unusually positive affective state that they can’t otherwise achieve.
