If you manage to buy the winning ticket to tonight’s Powerball drawing, you could walk away with a $700 million lottery. While definitely a ton of cash, it likely won’t make you the wealthiest person in your state — unless you happen to live in Alaska.
Forbes recently unveiled a list of the wealthiest people in each state, which includes California’s Mark Zuckerberg ($62.4 billion), Kansas’ Charles Koch ($47.5 billion), and Nebraska’s Warren Buffet ($76.2 billion). The majority of the people on the list are self-made million and billionaires (only 15 inherited their wealth), and command a collective $747 billion.
But not everyone is a member of the “Three Comma Club.” Seven states lack billionaire residents. By winning the jackpot, you’d become the wealthiest resident of only one of them, beating out Alaska real-estate moguls Leonard Hyde and Jonathan Rubini, each worth $340 million. At first glance, the $700 million prize would make you the richest resident of Vermont (beating out John Abele, who made his $625 million fortune in heath care) and Alabama (tying with Jimmy Rane, who built his $700-million empire in lumber).
But the $700 million jackpot figure refers to the lottery’s annuity option, which is doled out over the course of 29 years. If you chose to take the cash option, your prize would be a (still healthy) $443.3 million.
