The New Billionaires
In its annual report on the biggest billionaires of our time, the authoritative Forbes magazine once again named Bill Gates as the richest man in the world with a net worth of $50 billion.
This is the twelfth straight year that Gates has been accorded this honor.
It may be true that Gates is less active in Microsoft these days, but the founding father of this mammoth corporation is still very much the king of the hill as far as material wealth is concerned.
He is still the favorite role model of those who aspire for billion-dollar wealth.
Forbes reports that, these days, becoming a billionaire is not as hard as it used to be.
The publication said there are now a record 793 billionaires in the world, with an average net worth of $3.
3 billion, compared to only 691 billionaires in 2005.
If you pool all their resources together, these 793 billionaire men and women will have a net worth of $2.
6 trillion.
Contrast this figure to Forbes' report from just three years ago that identified only 476 around the world.
Comparing figures reveals that the number of billionaires worldwide has almost doubled over the past three years.
And to think that just 20 years ago when Forbes was first published, there were only a total of 140 men and women on the magazine's inaugural list of billionaires.
These figures indicate that it is much easier to reach the billion-dollar plateau in the new millennium compared to 20 years ago.
There are now new and unique ways to become a billionaire.
One prime example is the new billionaire Calvin Ayre, the jet-setting Canadian playboy who started the sports-betting site bodog.
com.
Ayre made his fortune 10 years ago in Costar Rica by taking illegal gambling bets over the Internet.
Ayre set up Bodog.
com in 1995 mainly for sports gambling but he subsequently added casino horse-racing and poker.
Bodog.
com is now America's largest sports betting destination now valued at over $1 billion.
Another notable new billionaire is Anurag Dikshit, one of the creators of the website ParyGaming poker.
Dikshit hit the billion dollar mark when he and his partners publicly listed their website this year.
This is the twelfth straight year that Gates has been accorded this honor.
It may be true that Gates is less active in Microsoft these days, but the founding father of this mammoth corporation is still very much the king of the hill as far as material wealth is concerned.
He is still the favorite role model of those who aspire for billion-dollar wealth.
Forbes reports that, these days, becoming a billionaire is not as hard as it used to be.
The publication said there are now a record 793 billionaires in the world, with an average net worth of $3.
3 billion, compared to only 691 billionaires in 2005.
If you pool all their resources together, these 793 billionaire men and women will have a net worth of $2.
6 trillion.
Contrast this figure to Forbes' report from just three years ago that identified only 476 around the world.
Comparing figures reveals that the number of billionaires worldwide has almost doubled over the past three years.
And to think that just 20 years ago when Forbes was first published, there were only a total of 140 men and women on the magazine's inaugural list of billionaires.
These figures indicate that it is much easier to reach the billion-dollar plateau in the new millennium compared to 20 years ago.
There are now new and unique ways to become a billionaire.
One prime example is the new billionaire Calvin Ayre, the jet-setting Canadian playboy who started the sports-betting site bodog.
com.
Ayre made his fortune 10 years ago in Costar Rica by taking illegal gambling bets over the Internet.
Ayre set up Bodog.
com in 1995 mainly for sports gambling but he subsequently added casino horse-racing and poker.
Bodog.
com is now America's largest sports betting destination now valued at over $1 billion.
Another notable new billionaire is Anurag Dikshit, one of the creators of the website ParyGaming poker.
Dikshit hit the billion dollar mark when he and his partners publicly listed their website this year.
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