We have noticed that Dota 2 representatives lead the ranking of the richest esportsmen in terms of the amount of prize money earned.
Therefore, we decided to look at the most financially successful players in each discipline by the number of prize money won. Top paid esports players:
Dota 2
We start, of course, with Dota 2, which in its heyday had a record prize pool of $40 million at The International 2021. Therefore, it is not surprising that according to Esports Earnings portal, 69 of the top 100 richest players are from Valve’s MOBA.
The richest among professional Dota 2 players is two-time The International champion (2018 and 2019) Johan N0tail Sundstein. During his career, the Dane earned $7.1 million. Sunnstein earned the most money by winning The International 2019, when he received approximately $3.124.036.
Fortnite
According to the Esports Earnings portal, Epic Games’ battle royale game Fortnite is the second most popular discipline in terms of prize money after Dota 2 ($364.3 million). This game has hosted 2301 tournaments with a total prize pool of $191.5 million.
Kyle Bugha Giersdorf won the most prize money in Fortnite. During his career, the American won four Tier-S championships and earned a little more than $3.7 million in total.
Counter-Strike
If we look at another game from Valve, or rather the Counter-Strike series, we will see a completely different situation, here the prize pools are not as high as in Dota 2, but the ways of monetization are completely different. In the CS franchise, we decided to identify the richest players from its three most popular titles.
Speaking about the most successful part, CS:GO, the most prize money was earned by Peter dupreeh Rasmussen, who was part of the legendary Astralis roster and won the major four times. During this time, the Dane earned about $2.1 million in prize money.
In a series of different Counter-Strikes before the release of Source and CS:GO, i.e. during the birth of esports, Patrik f0rest Lindberg won the most prize money — $191.4 thousand. We can also mention the golden NAVI team, which won four major CS 1.6 tournaments in 2010, and Ioann Edward Sukharev earned the most of all players from that team — $105.5 thousand.
Taking into account the tournaments with CS2 only, which was released in the early fall of 2023, more than $24.9 million has already been played in them. Currently, four NAVI representatives (Aleksib, B1t, iM, jL) are the most successful in CS2. The players earned $346,500 in prize money.
Call of Duty
Interestingly, only six professional CS players have earned more prize money than Tyler aBeZy Pharris, who has played in championships in different versions of Call of Duty. In total, the American earned $1.875.655 in 69 tournaments. Black Ops Cold War was the most successful for him, and he earned $483.7 thousand in tournaments.
League of Legends
League of Legends is one of the longest-running disciplines in professional esports. During this time, 3008 tournaments have been held, with almost $116 million in prize money.
It was expected that Lee Faker Sang Hyeok, the legend of this game, earned the most prize money in LoL tournaments. The five-time World Championship received $1.8 million in prize money. However, it is interesting that the closest to Faker is Lee Duke Ho Sung, who earned $954.8 thousand.
VALORANT
The shooter tournaments from Riot Games have been held for a short time, but $32.5 million has already been played in them.
Corbin C0M Lee is considered to be the richest player in VALORANT. The American has been playing in Tier 1 for the last two years, but he has already managed to win VALORANT Champions 2023 and reached the final stages of VALORANT Champions 2024, VCT 2023: Masters Tokyo and VCT 2023: Americas League.
During this time, Lee won a total of $329.613, which is the largest amount among all pro players in VALORANT. He earned $200 thousand after winning the Champions 2023.
Honor of Kings (Arena of Valor)
The mobile Honor of Kings, which is called Arena of Valor in the international adaptation, is the fifth discipline in terms of the amount of prize money played — $109.4 million.
Luo HuaHai Siyuan earned the most prize money in this game — $1.9 million. He received most of it for winning the Honor of Kings International Championship 2022, where the prize pool was $3.5 million, and HuaHai earned $500 thousand.
PUBG
Park Loki Jung Young is the richest player in PUBG. He has been on the professional scene since 2018, during which time Loki has won two Global Championships and three Nations Cups.
Jung Young earned the most money after winning the PUBG Global Championship 2019, which brought him $505 thousand, and he received $1.2 million in prize money in total.
PUBG Mobile
The richest player in PUBG Mobile is the Chinese Zhu paraboy Bocheng, who has earned $1.393.954 in prize money during his career. But he was almost overtaken by Zeng Order Jiehai, who earned $1.321.100.
Interestingly, 341 tournaments were held on PUBG Mobile. While there were 638 events on the PC version and $64.9 million was played in them, and $87.3 million was earned in the championships of the mobile version of the royal game.
Leaders in terms of the number of prizes won in other popular disciplines:
- StarCraft II: Joona Serral Sotala — $1.6 million.
- Rocket League: Evan M0nkey M00n Rogez — $895.1K.
- Apex Legends: Philip ImperialHal Dosen — $826.3K
- Rainbow Six Siege: Stephane Shaiiko Lebleu — $761.3K.
- WarCraft III: Jang Moon Jae Ho — $565K.
- Overwatch: Kwon Striker Nam Joo — $499.8K.
- Counter-Strike: Source: Sam RattlesnK Gawn — $76.9K.
It should be noted that the actual figures may have a slight deviation. Since when calculating the earned prize money, Esports Earnings portal divides the money earned for the tournament only among the players.
However, the exact conditions of distribution are different for each team, the organization may receive a part of it, and we should not forget that almost every team now has a coach who also receives his percentage. Therefore, it is worth remembering that these figures are approximate, but it is unlikely that the overall picture will be radically different.
