The highest earning hedge fund manager is ...

The highest earning hedge fund manager of 2011 essentially won the equivalent of seven of the current $540 Mega Million jackpots last year.

Bridgewater Associates' Ray Dalio's reward for his bets on where the markets were heading: $3.9 billion, according to Absolute Return's list of the top-earning hedge fund managers.

The top 25 hedge fund managers took home an average of $576 million each.