Can You Actually Spend $118.22 Billion?
Alice Walton holds the crown as the richest woman in the world, sitting on a fortune of $118.22 billion. To put that number into perspective, her personal wealth is larger than the entire annual economic output of countries like Ecuador, Slovakia, or Kenya.
The Spend Alice Walton Money Game lets you take full control of this monumental fortune. Your objective is straightforward: pick items from the catalog, add them to your cart, and see if you have the shopping stamina to drain her bank account completely down to zero dollars.
While that sounds easy, most players quickly discover how difficult it really is. If you buy normal luxury items like a $300,000 Ferrari, a $50,000 Rolex, or even a $10 million Hollywood mansion, the spending progress bar barely moves. Buying 1,000 luxury sports cars barely takes a 0.2% bite out of her fortune. To make real progress, you have to think on a billionaire scale: commercial airline fleets, mega-cruise ships, skyscrapers, and professional sports franchises.
The Real Story Behind the Walmart Fortune
Alice Walton did not build software companies or run retail stores. Her wealth comes from her family heritage. Her father, Sam Walton, opened the first Walmart store in Rogers, Arkansas in 1962. By keeping prices low and expanding into small towns, Walmart grew into the world's biggest company by revenue, pulling in over $650 billion every year across more than 10,500 stores worldwide.
Instead of working inside Walmart corporate offices like her brothers Rob and Jim, Alice followed her own path in arts and philanthropy:
- World-Class Art Collection: She spent hundreds of millions of dollars collecting iconic American artworks by artists like Norman Rockwell, Andy Warhol, and Georgia O'Keeffe.
- Crystal Bridges Museum: In 2011, she spent hundreds of millions of dollars building the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, and opened it to the public with free general admission.
- Texas Ranches: She spent decades breeding championship cutting horses on her sprawling 1,400-acre Rocking W Ranch in Millsap, Texas.
- Medical School: She founded the Alice L. Walton School of Medicine in Arkansas to train doctors with a focus on whole-person health.
The Earning Paradox: Alice Gets Richer While You Shop
Here is the wildest fact about playing the Alice Walton simulator: in real life, her money grows faster than almost anyone could spend it.
Through her family holding companies, Alice owns hundreds of millions of Walmart shares. Walmart pays regular cash dividends every quarter. That means Alice collects roughly $700 million to $800 million every year in pure cash payouts, before counting any increases in Walmart stock price.
Breaking that down: she earns about $2.1 million in cash every single day, or roughly $90,000 every single hour, day and night, even while sleeping. If you played this game in real time and spent less than $1,500 every minute, Alice's bank account would actually grow instead of shrink.
The Math of Going Broke with $118.22 Billion
To reach zero in this simulator, look at what it would actually take:
- Daily Spending: If you spent $1,000,000 every day without stopping, it would take you 323 years to spend her money.
- Sports Empires: You could buy every single team in the NFL (all 32 franchises) and still keep more than $10 billion in reserve.
- Real Estate: You could purchase 11,800 luxury penthouses priced at $10 million each.
- Commercial Flights: You could purchase nearly 300 brand new Boeing 747 jumbo jets at list price.
Scroll up to the simulator, test your spending strategy, print your final receipt, and see how close you can get to zero dollars.