Top 5 Highest Earning Females in Esports in 2017

May 19, 2017

Repeat.gg presents a list of the top five highest-earning females in esports list based on prize money won.

All figures shown in this article will be placed in USD and based on the time the item was created (mid-2017). Figures do not include earnings from salaries, endorsements, advertisements, streaming, bonuses given by sponsors and its organisations to players.

Diversity and Statistics

The diversity in video games over the past decade is growing; game publishers are creating more and more leading playable roles in video games for women. Games such as Fallout 4, Mass Effect, Horizon Zero Dawn, Dishonoured 2, Tomb Raider and much more allow gamers to play as a female or select a female to play.

Gender in Gaming ( Stats from the USA)
48% of gamers are females
52% of gamers are males
75% of the games industry is male
Of the most frequent game purchasers, 41% are female, and 59% are male

*According to the Entertainment Software Association’s annual 2016

Figures are always being thrown out on what the statistics are on female to male ratios in video games, the common story we hear is that there are more female gamers than male.This will include mobile games such as bejewelled or Facebook games like Farmville to make those numbers but how many actual female esports professionals are competing?

The number of Professional Female Gamers.

Based on tournament entries alone, there are roughly around 360 female gamers that have dived into competitive gaming in eSports in the past decade with only 171 of them making over $1000 from prize pools. Over 85% of the prize money won from female gamers are from female only tournaments, with the top 2 highest individuals having competed against men for their highest earnings. The numbers are looking to improve over the next decade compared to last as the inclusion of female tournaments increase in just the last 24 months, Still, the females listed in this blog do not reach the top 700 highest paid male gamers in prize pools won.

Below we show the top five highest females earners and the five game titles with the most prize pool won by females.

Top 5 highest earning Females.

Player Name	Country	Earnings	Highest Playing Game	Tournaments
1.Scarlett		$174,812.83	Starcraft II	99
2. Mystik		$122,000.00	Halo: Reach	3
3.Ricki Ortiz		$80,380.18	Street Fighter V	59
4. Kasumi Chan		$55,000.00	Dead or Alive 4	2
5. Sarah Lou		$50,000.00	Dead or Alive 4	1

Sarah Lou

Sarah Lou born in The United Kingdom practically has no back story in gaming, started and ended her career as a Dead Or Alive 4 Female player after Sarah was drafted into the 2008 Birmingham Salvo team for the Championship Gaming Series. Her team ended up winning the CGS televised world championship after defeating the Carolina Core franchise, just like Kasumi Chan, Sarah Lou lost a close game against the player named Mystik 4-5 in Dead Or Alive 4, who is also mention in this list below. Regardless of the outcome, her team went on to win other games allowing Sarah to collect $50k from just one tournament played in her career.

Kasumi Chan

Marjorie “Kasumi Chan” Bartell is a retired American professional gamer with only two recorded tournaments played to date. Kasumi Chan named after a character from Dead or Alive four was drafted to team Chicago Chimera from the televised Championship Gaming Series (CGS). During CGS World Championships in 2007 Chicago Chimera defeated Carolina Core where she faced Mystik and lost 2-5, Her team managed to gather points from other games to make Marjorie $50k richer. Scores across five different games equalled to your overall team score, part of the five were was Kasumi’s Dead Or Alive 4 with a Male and Female division.

Kasumi Chan, only other prize pool was from the Dead or Alive CGS Invitational 2006 where men and women competed against each other, Kasumi placed 2nd eventually losing to a male opponent player called Master. Marjorie did not return for season 2 of the CGS world championships and did not continue competing in video games professionally.

Ricki Ortiz

Ricki Ortiz is an American professional fighting game player from Northern California at 33 years of age. Currently signed to one of the largest organizations in gaming team EG ( Evil Geniuses), Ricki currently plays Street Fighter V. Ricki Ortiz is a transgender woman who is also one of the most decorated fighting game players in the world and has taken out numerous North American events in Street Fighter & Capcom vs. SNK 2.

Ricki’s largest eSports prize pool is from Capcom Cup 2016 placing second behind the highly skilled Nuckledu to receive a cheque of $60,000, by far the largest one she has received and the largest in any Street Fighter series.

Mystik

Katherine “Kat” Gunn is an ex-professional gamer and cosplayer, at 28 years of age, she is a competitor at heart and also a great entertainer for her fans on social media and the streaming platform Twitch. Katherine comes from a substantial background in gaming as her entire immediate family grew up playing video games in their household.

Her first significant step into professional gaming was back in 2007 during the televised Championship Gaming Series (CGS) league and was drafted into the team Carolina Core as the female player of the Dead Or Alive 4 game. In 2007 Katherine’s team Carolina Core finished second place during the CGS world championships earning her a $15,000 pay cheque on top of her season salary for the show. Returning in 2008 Katherine had already made a name for herself as a top female contender for Dead or Alive 4; Her team placed 3rd/4th the following season earning her $7,000.

2010 was where it all went great Gunn’s (sorry for the pun) for Mystik; She auditioned for the second season of the reality television show World Cyber Games Ultimate Gamer. Gamers were pitted against each other based off a weekly video game title that they must compete in real life challenges based off the game they would eventually try to eliminate other opponents in the match itself. Katherine went on to win the whole season earning her $100,000 and the Ultimate Gamer trophy defeating other females and males along the way, Halo Reach was the final game played during the show’s finale.

2015 Kat was placed in the Gaming Guinness book of world records until she was taken over by the eventual no.1 Scarlett in 2016, she was featured in a video by Guinness book of world records going more in depth with the achievement.

Today Mystik streams almost daily on Twitch.tv with a large following to boot, She was signed by multiple organisations to be represented by Katherine during her time and currently is with the organisation Team.EnVyUs.

1.Scarlett

Sasha “Scarlett” Hostyn 23 years old is a professional Starcraft player from Canada. Being number one comes with a lot of scrutiny and Sasha is no stranger to that exposure. Being a transgender woman has come with a lot of questions behind her eligibility to be allowed in Female restrict tournaments. With no recorded history of HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy) or any procedure done has only raised arguments for her case to play in these restricted tournaments.

ESL who are one of the largest eSports professional tournament organisers stated on Scarlett eligibility to compete in their female-only tournaments stating – “As a tournament organisation we are not gonna get into the business of checking birth certificates and genitalia. If you have sufficient evidence that you are female, or at least identify as female, you are qualified to play in the Iron Lady cups.”

Regardless of Gender, Scarlett is nothing short of a true world-class professional gamer, becoming North American Champion, Canadian Champion and numerous top placements in major events. Hailed as “The Queen of Starcraft II” and “The Korean Kryptonite” came from her ability to beat some of the world’s best players.

Scarlett’s highest earning prize pool was 1st place in WCS 2012: North America winning $24,000.00 and beating 32 male competitors. Scarlett’s top 10 highest earning prize pools were in non-gender-restricted tournaments, and her prize pool earnings came by facing mostly all males.

Top 5 highest earning games for females

Game Title	Earnings	No. Female Earners
Counter-Strike	Over $350,664.00	114
Starcraft	$218,859.00 ($174,812.82 from scarlett)	17
Dead Or Alive 4	$176,000.00	14
League Of Legends	$59,970	28
Quake	$44,250	9

*Based on the top 200 female Competitors and the game series that are played from late 2016

One of the best ways a female competitor can make money is from streaming their gameplay online using such programs or sites such as Twitch. As expected, female streamers receive a fair bit of attention, giving them a larger possible viewer base than most male streamers, thus allowing them the potential to market themselves and receive new revenues off streaming. This sometimes overshadows the talent and professionalism of some gamer girls in the pro-gaming scene.

Source – All figures compiled from Esports earnings. This list represents the top players in esports who won the most prize money based on information published on the internet. Sources include news articles, forum posts, live report threads, interviews, official statements, reliable databases, VODs and other publicly-accessible sources that preserve “historical” information.

If you found this article interesting make sure to read our other Prize Pool Articles –

Highest Earning eSports Countries

Highest-Earning Prize Pools of 2016

Highest Paying Game Titles In History

Highest Earning Individuals In Esports

Article Written by – Repeat.gg Community Manager Scott “Boomser” Bednarski – Twitter – @Scottyboomser

Top 5 Highest Earning Esports Individuals in 2017

Scott Bednarski

February 1, 2017

ti5-champs.0.0 — Four from team EG make up the top 5 richest gamers in the world

Repeat.gg presents a list of the Top 5 Highest Earning Esports Individuals based on Prize Money won. All figures shown in this article will be placed in USD and based on the time the report was created (Early 2017). Figures do not include earnings from salaries, endorsements, advertisements, streaming, or bonuses given by sponsors and its organisations to players.

The Top 5 list is entirely made of Dota 2 (Defence Of The Ancients 2) professional players. In fact, 84 of the top 100 highest earning Esports individuals are solely made of Dota 2 players. What also makes this top 5 list so interesting is the fact that more than 70% to 80% of a players prize pool earnings are made from just one tournament winnings, or even 2nd place finishes in the annual multi-million dollar Dota 2 tournament “The International”.

To read more about this, view our previous article on the richest Esports tournaments in 2016

*Due to Dota 2 having such an effect on Esports Prize pools we will also showcase the top 5 highest earning players by separate video game titles further down the article.

Highest Earning Individuals

Player Name	Country	Earnings	Highest Playing Game	Tournaments
1.UNiVeRsE	USA	$2,720,623.84	Dota 2	58
2. pdd	USA	$2,618,120.36	Dota 2	57
3. Fear	USA	$2,401,426.34	Dota 2	59
4. Sumail	Pakistan	$2,315,847.74	Dota 2	26
5. Iceice	China	$1,981,327.43	Dota 2	15

Top Four Individuals were teammates once

teamEG — Universe, ppd, Fear & Sumail from Team EG

The top four richest professional players in the world UNiVeRsE, pdd, Fear, Sumail were all teammates at one point under the team Banner EG (Evil Geniuses). EG had massive success as a team before half the team split ways winning three large prize pools in the space of 12 months.

former player pdd recently announced his retirement from the team which soon followed to him becoming the CEO of the Evil Genius organisation.

UNiVeRse, pdd, Fear & Sumail individual winnings as teammates for 12 months –

1st – The International 2015 – $1,326,932.14 each

3rd – The International 2016 – $436,179.00 each

1st – Dota 2 Asia Cup 2015 – $256,831.60 each

Total – $2,019,942.00 per player

I guess no money in the world can keep a team together.

600px-iceice_esl_one_manila_2016 — Iceice from teams Wings Gaming

Iceice being the only non-former Evil Geniuses player in the top 5 won more than 85% of his lifetime earnings from winning one single competition – The International 2016 – where he took home $1,827,800.40 for himself.

The International is a Dota 2 World Championship that takes place each year and is hosted by the game developer Valve. The prize pools are seeded by the game developers (Valve) first offering an initial cash purse or $1,600,000 with the rest of the prize pool raised by the community that plays Dota 2 via the purchase of an in-game Compendium called “Battle Pass”. 25% of the proceeds from all “Battle Pass” sales go directly to funding The International Prize Pool. The overall purchases of the passes in 2016 equalled to $76,682,560.00…yes, $76 million dollars were raised by the community to help fund the prize purse! Only $20,770,640.00 of that went towards the prize purse. Nice payday for Valve!

The previous two Internationals Prize Pools payout comparison

In the past 5 years the overall prize pools for The International Dota 2 Championships were

2016 – $20,770,640.00

2015 – $18,429,613.05

2014 – $10,931,103.00

2013 – $2,874,407.00

2012 – $1,600,000.00

Highest Earning Esports Individuals By Game

Player Name	Country	Earnings	Highest Playing Game	Tournaments
1. UNiVeRsE	USA	$$2,720,623.84	Dota 2	57
2. Faker	S.Korea	$897,818.98	League of Legends	32
3. Jaedong	S.Korea	$619,476.55	StarCraft: Brood War	98
4. Neo	Poland	$560,569.85	Counter-Strike: Global Offensive	166
5. Moon	S.Korea	$492,824.00	WarCraft III	108

5th .

Jang “moon” Jae-ho is a retired 29-year-oldSouth Korean master of RTS in the games Warcraft III and Starcraft II. Jang success came mostly as a Night Elf player in Warcraft III, winning five Warcraft World Championships and three televised national South-Korean leagues. In 2009 moon held the record at the time signing a $500,000 contract deal with Korean team WeMade Fox organisation. At the time this was surprising to the community, but larger numbers have since been reported for salary packages in today’s eSports scene.

Although Moon retired in 2014 playing Starcraft II, his top ten largest prize pools all came in WarCraft III with the largest being $38,120.65 by taking out Game-X in 2007. This would have been peanuts compared to the amount of money he would’ve made from endorsements, salary, sponsorship deals and streaming throughout his career.

4th.

Filip “Neo” Kubski is a Polish CS: GO, player, A fan favourite in the scene of Counter-Strike over the years from starting out in Counter-Strike 1.6. Known for being an all-rounder for his team he can rifle, AWP and is the current caller for the Virtus.PRO team. Neo was voted best CS 1.6 Player of 2011 by HLTV.org and has been a part of the longest stable roster in Counter-Strike history with the same five players whom which has won Major titles across both Counter-Strike Franchises.

Neo received his largest tournament win just recently over the course of a decade of competing in the title from the first season of the televised tournament ELEAGUE. Virtus.Pro Neo and his teammates managed to take home $80,000 each per player and to cement them as one of the most consistent performing teams in a major.

3rd.

Lee “Jaedong” Jae Dong at 26 years old is a retired South Korean Starcraft professional gamer. With nicknames such as “Destructor” & “The Legend Killer,” Lee was a hyper-aggressive Zerg player in the Starcraft Series during the popularity of the game in the early stages of Professional gaming. Lee is one of three Starcraft players in the world to win the “Golden Mouse” award for winning three OSL titles and spend 16 months as the clear best player in Korea.

Jaedong received his largest prize earnings taking out the GOMTV MSL #4 IN 2008 with $52,203.51, Although the number may not be huge by today’s standards Lee’s yearly salary could have been five times that and one to be admired in the day outweighing any prize he had won to date.

2nd.

Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok aka “God” of League Of Legends is 20 years of age. Coming from Seoul; South Korea, he is the richest gamer from South Korea. Faker is considered to be the best individual player in the world for League of Legends and is renowned for his extreme mechanical skill in the game. Lee has won three World Championships under team SK Telecom T1 and is one of only two in the world to do so in League of Legends.

Lee’s largest tournament winning today was the recent $5 million prize pool League Of Legends 2016 World Championship winning him $338,000.00 by taking first place.

An unconfirmed source posted by South Korea sports news website, Naver.com, claimed that Faker would be picking up an annual cheque of 3 billion SK Won per year, approximately $2.5 million in US Dollars. The figure doesn’t include money made from competitions or personal sponsorships and endorsements.

1st.

UNiVeRse is the worlds richest gamer by Prize Money Won

Saahil “UNiVeRsE” Arora at 27 years of age is from Madison, Wisconsin America. To date, Saahil is the highest earning eSports figure in the world having won over $2.5 million in prize pools alone over the course of 4 years playing Defense Of The Ancients (Dota 2).

Saahil biggest win to date is from The International 2015 – $1,326,932.14 with team EG (Evil Geniuses) and is still a part of one of the best Dota 2 teams in the world for 2016. One can only image how much he receives from streaming, bonuses, salary and sponsorship deals on top of these impressive earnings.

Sahil largest five tournament earnings are

1.	Team EG	1st	» The International 2015	$1,326,932.14	Dota 2
2.	Team EG	3rd	» The International 2016	$436,179.60	Dota 2
3.	Team EG	1st	DAC 2015	$256,831.60	Dota 2
4.	Team EG	3rd	» The International 2014	$207,691.00	Dota 2
5.	Team EG	3rd	» The Frankfurt Major 2015	$63,000.00	Dota 2

Get use to seeing this Logo on the Dota 2 Podiums

Source – All figures compiled from http://www.esportsearnings.com/players This list represents the top players in esports who won the most prize money based on information published on the internet. Sources include news articles, forum posts, live report threads, interviews, official statements, reliable databases, VODs and other publicly-accessible sources that preserve “historical” information.

If you found this article interesting make sure to read our other Prize Pool Articles –

Highest Earning eSports Countries

Highest-Earning Prize Pools of 2016

Highest Paying Game Titles In History

Article Written by – XYGaming Community Manager Scott “Boomser” Bednarski – Twitter – @Scottyboomser

How To Make Money In Gaming – Intro

Scott Bednarski

January 21, 2017

XY Gaming - How to Make Money in Gaming - Introduction - Part 1

Welcome to our introduction of the 8-part series of how to make money in gaming, We explain each method in creating a possible career in video games.

The term Professional Gamer shouldn’t come as a surprise when explaining a video-gamer that makes a living from video games. When questioned about forms of making a career in video-games, the general public would most likely narrow it down to two types of careers – playing video games and making them.

Nowadays, these are not the only ways, and in fact, there are probably a dozen forms of making a career through video-gaming, which we will go more into detail with what they are, how much one can make and how to get started.

The whole series spawns from the fact that gaming is vastly being recognised not only as a booming business industry but also a legitimate sport. SuperData Research forecasts that eSports (Electronic Sports) will grow from $748.8 million in 2015 to 1.9 billion by 2018 in revenue. Just in January this year, ESPN created an eSports section and production team on their page permanently, only cementing proof that eSports are being taken seriously. Which all boils down to one thing…If there is a future in gaming, there is a career to be made from it.

Repeat.gg will release an 8-part series where we will explore the most conventional and non-conventional career choices in the order listed – Starting with the most common of them all in Part 2

Part 1 – Introduction
Part 2 – Professional Gaming
Part 3 – Streaming
Part 4 – Commentary and Broadcasting
Part 5 – Coaching and Managing
Part 6 – Gambling/eSports Betting
Part 7 – Skilled Gaming
Part 8 – Fantasy League

Each article will be broken down into these segments

Explanation of what it is
How money is made and how much (with examples)?
How can you begin in this area?
What will help you and tips & tricks
*Some of them will also include interviews from some of the biggest names in eSports

What are the author’s history and experience with the topics listed?

Scott “Boomers” Bednarski is a retired professional gamer who has travelled the world playing video games. In 2007-2008 he got the opportunity to play for Australia in a live television esports league called Championship Gaming Series. Scott played in front of huge live audiences and was viewed by millions internationally on direct TV. During this time he lived in the US playing and coaching. Afterwards, Scott became a gaming commentator for Counter-Strike in the Oceania region and traveled to live gaming events in Australia and New Zealand.

XY Gaming - Boomser - Introduction — Repeat.gg – Boomser – Introduction

Shortly after, Scott became a Founder with the responsibilities of coach and manager of an Australian multi-gaming organisation with international recognition under the banner of Vox Eminor (Voxe). Today Scott works full-time in the skill-based betting sector of esports, under the title of Community Manager for Repeat.gg. A full interview and Bio can be found here.

If you have any questions you would like to ask, please feel free to contact us at [email protected]

Top 5 Highest Paying Esports Games in 2016

Scott Bednarski

January 20, 2017

Repeat.gg presents a list of the highest paying Esports game titles in history based on prize money won. All figures shown in this article will be placed in USD and based on the time the report was created (Late 2016).

It should not come as a surprise to anybody familiar with the Esports scene that Dota 2 (Defense Of The Ancients 2) rules the roost on a gaming prize pool tally. Although it records the highest paying tournaments in the world of Esports , it isn’t necessarily the most watched or largest Esports title based on statistics.

Each year prize pools and viewership numbers are rising and the past year is no exception with 4 of the five games on the list have recorded their best individual highest prize pool records in the past year.

Highest Paying Game Titles

Game Title	Earnings	No. Tournaments	Professional Players	Release Date
Dota 2	$94,814,164.45	654	1709	Late 2011
League of legends	$37,042,213.80	1773	4332	Mid 2009
Counter-Strike:GO	$28,638,773.08	2014	6333	Early 2012
Starcraft II	$21,765,461.56	3961	1599	Early 2010
Counter-Strike	$10,771,935.77	572	2587	Late 2000

#5 Counter-Strike

Prize Pool – $10,771,935.77

Professional Players – 2587

Tournaments – 572

Highest Earning Counter – Sweden $2,733,810.21

Largest Prize Pool – $200,000.00

The only retired Esports game in the top 5 and also the predecessor to the current active Counter-Strike: Global offensive title. Counter-Strike (sometimes referred to as Half-Life: Counter-Strike or Counter-Strike 1.6, and shortened to CS) is a tactical first-person shooter developed by Valve Corporation. The game went to expand into other series since the original release of the game, which was successful in their right, but the original still reigned as the championship game title.

The Counter-Strike version 1.6 retired as the main competitive series in late 2012 when the majority of organisations and teams transferred over when Valve discontinued its support for the professional circuit. Intel Extreme Masters was one of the major tournaments for CS 1.6 and once the announcement was released by HLTV.org that it was dropped sent shock waves throughout the community.

Counter-Strike eSport’s peak was during 2003-2005 and was one of the only few professional eSport titles with Starcraft at the time. Due to it being before Esports time and just starting to break ground, its largest prize pool only came from the 2003 CPL Summer with $200,000 prize pool with SK-Gaming taking it out for $60,000 1st place.

#4 Starcraft II

Prize Pool – $21,765,461.56

Professional Players – 1599

Tournaments – 3971

Highest Earning Counter – South Korea $14,570,946.89

Largest Prize Pool – $$500,000.00

StarCraft II is a military science fiction real-time strategy video game developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment and played in a one versus one format. Just like Counter-Strike, the game Starcraft started its series back in 1999, but unlike its counterpart, it has recently received less attention as a major Esports title with League of Legends and Overwatch taking heavy traffic in South Korea.

For many years South Korea were the masters of the game and respect was given to any foreigners that were able even to challenge the game’s Overloads. Starcraft was so large at one point it was considered to be the biggest “sport” in Korea making the top players instant superstars, which also enticed top foreigners to relocate for a professional career permanently.

StarCraft has been called the most successful e-sport in the world that includes its ranking system, and it has been referred to as the national pastime in South Korea, where there are two television channels dedicated to broadcasting professional StarCraft matches.

A common theme in recent years in Esports is larger prize pools, and it will come as no surprise that Starcraft II, regardless of its downwards popularity, had its largest prize pool in 2016. This was the WCS 2016 Global Finals with a $500,000 prize pool where South Korean professional player Byun took home $200,000.

#3 Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

Prize Pool – $28,638,773.08

Professional Players – 6495

Tournaments – 2046

Highest Earning Counter – Sweden $4,525,321.90

Largest Prize Pool – $1,410.000.00

Counter-Strike (officially abbreviated as CS) is a series of multiplayer first-person shooter video games, in which teams of terrorists and counter-terrorists battle, respectively, perpetrate an act of terror and prevent it. Released in 1999 as a modification for Half-Life, Counter-Strike today is the oldest current Esports game title series still in rotation and in fact is the most working professional eSport title.

Counter-Strike is the largest Global Esports title with over 820 tournaments recorded in 2016 alone, almost quadruple the tournaments played then the next two most major Esports titles: League of Legends and Dota 2. With Counter-Strike: GO currently on weekly television in America with TBS and League, the potential growth for the title is becoming larger each year and now challenging League Of Legends in viewership.

Third-ranked highest Esports title Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is the fourth game in the main Counter-Strike franchise. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive was released in August 2012. Only recently in the past 18 months, Counter-Strike has received the mainstream gaming attention it has gotten as possibly being one of, if not the largest, Esports professional title. In the past year prize money has jumped from $250,000 as the biggest prize pool of 2015 to around $1,400,000 almost twice this year with the viewership to match, 1.6 million people watched the MLG Columbus live with over 45 million hours viewed.

#2 League Of Legends

Prize Pool – $37,042,213.80

Professional Players – 4332

Tournaments – 1773

Highest Earning Counter – South Korea $13,832,712.92

Largest Prize Pool – $5,070,000.00

League of Legends (abbreviated LoL) is a multiplayer online battle arena video game developed and published by Riot Games and is highly inspired by the game title previously mentioned, Defense Of The Ancients. Almost a brain child of the Dota franchise, League of Legends picked up momentum extremely quickly and become the fastest-growing user base of all time.

Current League Of Legends boasts around 100 million active users each month making it the most played game on the planet. Released in 2009, League of Legends has formed as the pinnacle of professional Esports. The creators Riot fully fund the pro-circuit and the world championships each year. Riot have fully taken control of the professional scene by paying professional players salaries, accommodation, managers, coaches and dealing with all legalities of contracts for all its pro-players. What also makes League Of Legends so successful is using their platform also to showcase the professional and amateur scene by each region player logs into. Just loading the game, you will be inundated with information about current and recent tournaments hosted by Riot Games.

League of Legends is also the most watched Esports title in the world. In one year LOL received 263.8 million hours watch on twitch and by June 2016 had 26.7 million Esports hours watched, just behind Dota 2 which saw 32.9 million hours watched. In 2015 League of Legends had more people watching their World Championship then the NBA Finals online with around 36 million unique viewers.

In 2016, League Of Legends broke their record for highest prize pool for the game having adopted the Dota 2 crowdsourcing method. This boosted their last year’s prize pool from $2,130,000.00 to $5,070,000.00 the following year.

#1 Dota 2

Prize Pool – $94,814,164.45

Professional Players – 1709

Tournaments – 654

Highest Earning Country – China $37,253,914.71

Largest Prize Pool – $20,770,640.00 (2016)

Defense Of The Ancients 2 (Dota 2) is a free-to-play multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) video game developed and published by Valve Corporation. The game is played by pitting two teams of five. The game currently holds the world record for the largest Esports prize pool at $20,770,640.00. This was for their annual world championship which has run since 2011 called “The International”. The International Prize Pools are reached by the game developers (Valve) first offering an initial cash purse of $1,600,000 with the rest of the money raised by the community that plays Dota2 via purchasing in-game Compendiums called “Battle Pass”. 25% of the proceeds from all “Battle Pass” sales go directly to funding The International Prize Pool.

This method of crowdsourcing for prize money has led to games such as Smite, Counter-Strike: GO and League Of Legends reaching their highest prize purse given away in the last couple of years. Much of Dota 2’s success is from the game company themselves introducing a Major Pro Circuit each year of 3 major events funded by crowdfunding and game creators Valve.

An argument can be had about which of the top 3 highest earning game titles can take the crown as the largest Esports title. Is it Dota 2, League of Legends or Counter-Strike? Key factors such as the active competitive circuit, larger audience or viewership and largest prize pools can all be arguments in determining which title is king.

Source – http://www.esportsearnings.com/countries – This list represents the top countries of players in Esports who won prize money based on information published on the internet. Sources include news articles, forum posts, live report threads, interviews, official statements, reliable databases, VODs and other publicly-accessible sources that preserve “historical” information.

If you found this article interesting make sure to read our other Prize Pool Articles –

Highest Earning Esports Countries

Highest-Earning Prize Pools of 2016

Article Written by – Repeat.gg Community Manager Scott “Boomser” Bednarski – Twitter – @Scottyboomser

Highest Earnings Esports Countries

Scott Bednarski

January 12, 2017

confetti-falls-as-chinese-team-wings-celebrate-their-ti6-win- — Chinese team Wings win the largest prize pool in history during The International 2016 Event

These are the highest earning Esports countries based on figures gathered at the end of 2016, and the top three are exactly who you might expect.

The top three highest earnings Esports countries, consisting of China, United States and South Korea, collectively have 11,000 professional gamers. This number is impressive when you see that it overshadows the next twelve highest earning countries in the world, which have a combined estimate of 10,000 professional players.

*All figures are based on USD currency and are gathered from the end of 2016

Each country differs in what genres they are mostly known for over the last decade. Certain regions pick up on games based on popularity and exposure to their scene. Some countries are heavily focused on MMO genres or FPS genres, and these seem to be a common theme over the past decade other than the new major titles that act as a persuader (Prize Pools). The three largest games that pull in the greatest number of professional gamers across the globe is Counter-Strike: GO, League of Legends and Defense Of The Ancients 2 (Dota 2) due to their high prize pool and popularity.

Some countries are known for producing world-famous opponents and therefore recognised for their skill in those game genres. For example, South-East Asia is firmly known for their incredible APM (actions per minute) making them referred to as the RTS and MMO kings. For this reason, below you will see over the past decade the common theme for the renown countries and how they make up for most of their fortune.

In this article, we will show you how each country receives the majority of their prize pools share from certain game titles and who are their top 5 highest earning individual gamers. All Prize money are shown in USD and is solely based off Prize Money won from all tournaments played.

Earnings per Country

Country	Earnings	Highest Earning Game	Professional Players
1. China	$52,266,435.74	Dota 2	1829
2. United States	$46,909,614.66	Call of Duty, Halo	7484
3. South Korea	$44,232,905.90	Starcraft, League of Legends	1885
4. Sweden	$18,945,467.84	Dota 2, Counter-Strike	1550
5. Canada	$10,366,238.67	Dota 2, Counter-Strike, Smite	1237

5th . Canada

One of the unique countries of them all is easily Canada, due to their success in the world tally for earning prize pools. Unlike other nations Canada rarely fields full teams, which may be attributable to fewer resources, or a player base that’s spread between mostly American and other international team rosters. What’s also interesting is that Canada does not have a clear cut highest earning game, making them one of the most diverse gaming countries in the world when it comes to winning prize money in Esports.

Although the top 4 highest earners for Canada are Dota 2 players from mixed international teams, it is still relatively unclear as to what their most successful game could be by titles won.

Summary – Canada has had four very successful players in Dota2 helping Canada rack up $4,392,670.83 which accounts for nearly half their total earnings.

Highest Earning Individuals

Player Name	Earnings	Highest Earning Game
Aui_2000	$1,930,128.64	Dota 2
Arteezy	$967,066.81	Dota 2
EternalEnVy	$789,966.28	Dota 2
MoonMeande	$763,248.10	Dota 2
Karma	$378,347.25	Call Of Duty

4th . Sweden

Counter-Strike saw the same dominance for many years with the country Sweden taking the top spot for the scene, sharing it only with the Polish and Ukrainian Counter-Strike players. In fact, it is only recent, where any other country has been able to really compete against Sweden for the world title. The reason for this may be due to global popularity, and higher stakes are attracting more organisations and players to do anything to reach the top spot.

Much like Canada, Sweden’s top individual earners are from Dota 2, but the majority of their prize pools are made up from the Counter-Strike Series.

Summary – Sweden has won a total of $7,329,338.00 from Counter-Strike in over a decade closely followed by their Dota 2 success at $6,327,086 where they sit third in the world in Dota 2.

Highest Earning Individuals

Player Name	Earnings	Highest Earning Game
Zai	$1,171,860.64	Dota 2
S4	$1,158,152.88	Dota 2
pieliedie	$674,923.90	Dota 2
Loda	$657,023.81	Dota 2
Akke	$643,359.79	Dota 2

3rd . South Korea

Over the course of the last decade, individual countries have dominated certain game titles especially the MMO’s & RTS franchises for many many years. The only real professional gamers were once South Koreans in the Starcraft series. Throughout the past decade, in fact, South Korea posed as the powerhouse in games like Starcraft and Warcraft. As a result of today, we see the same strengths on display in Overwatch and League of Legends, with South Koreans looking like unstoppable forces in those game titles also.

Summary – South Korea’s two largest games being Starcraft 2 at $14,191,626.00 and League Of Legends $13,753,312.00 makes up $27,944,938.00 of Korea’s $43,321,224.35 total won.

Highest Earning Individuals

Player Name	Earnings	Highest Earning Game
Faker	$897,818.98	League Of Legends
Bengi	$810,683.00	League Of Legends
Wolf	$635,741.13	League Of Legends
Bang	$631,239.89	League Of Legends
Jaedong	$617,774.55	Starcraft Brood War

2nd . United States

The United States are the jack of all trades. It’s a multi-talented country when collecting paycheques, although nearly half of the money earnt is made up from console based tournaments. These console tournaments are mostly hosted in the United States, where most countries you see in the list have a non-existent console community or scene for those games at all. Because of this, we see games like the Halo series, Call of Duty and fighting games being won by mostly Americans.

Besides the top three highest earnings in America solely from the strong American side Team EG’s $6,634,6060.68 win in the International 2015 for Dota 2. Including EG’s several other significant prize pools won in Dota2, there aren’t many more successors in the American scene for Dota 2. The majority of the rest is made up of Counter-Strike: GO and larger numbers of smaller console earnings to make them earn their second place for the United States.

Summary – Collectively the United States Console Titles have won $7,492,479.99 from Call Of Duty and $7,067,233.00 from the Halo series making $14,559,712 of America’s $46,242,099.61 total won. Dota 2 makes up around $9 million of the total won by the USA based players.

Highest Earning Individuals

Player Name	Earnings	Highest Earning Game
1.UNiVeRsE	$2,708,036.44	Dota 2
2. ppd	$2,618,120.36	Dota 2
3.Fear	$2,383,155.64	Dota 2
4. Moo	$725,107.20	Dota 2
5. Fatal1ty	$456,089.23	Painkiller

1st . China

China holds the top spot. Probably one of the least multi-game earning countries in the top five list, China is the premier country for Dota 2 which boasts almost 75% higher prize pools than its next Esports title competitor League Of Legends. The top 16 highest paid Chinese players sit around $1 million or more in prize money winnings each, all from Dota 2 tournaments. Therefore almost half of their top 100 earners are from Dota 2, and if you were to remove Dota 2 from the equation, China would be placed 5th on the list.

Summary – $35,759,547.05 Of China’s $52,266,435.74 were collected in Dota 2 tournaments alone making over 70% of their combined earnings.

Highest Earning Individuals

Player Name	Earnings	Highest Earning Game
1. iceice	$1,981,327.43	Dota 2
2. bLink	$1,937,777.82	Dota 2
3. y’	$1,937,777.82	Dota 2
4. Faith_bian	$1,937,717.40	Dota 2
5. Shadow	$1,937,617.40	Dota 2

If you found this article interesting make sure to read our other Prize Pool Articles –

Top 5 largest Esports Prize Pools of 2016

Article Written by – Repeat.gg Community Manager Scott “Boomser” Bednarski – Twitter – @Scottyboomser

Top 5 Largest Esports Prize Pools of 2016

Scott Bednarski

December 22, 2016

The largest esports prize pools for 2016, in the largest & most popular gaming esports titles, All figures are in USD for each prize purse mentioned.

Each year esports is growing in popularity. With increasing popularity, the organizations hosting these tournaments are offering larger prize pools to teams and players to attract them to their events.

Check out the Top 5 Largest Esports Games and Their Prize Pools in 2015.

Prize Pools of the top five collectively in 2016 – $31,740,640.00 USD

At times teams and players will skip tournaments to prepare better for events called “Majors” or “Worlds” and while doing so miss out on possible hundreds of thousands in prize pools from regular events running back to back. Not all’s lost as you would expect these Majors & Worlds tournaments for major game titles to offer the biggest prize pools.

We take a look at the largest prize pools in esports for 2016, in the most popular esports titles. All figures are in USD and based on the single largest prize pool for each of the five major esports titles.

Note – These prize pools all broke their previous records that were set in 2015.

#5 – Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (PC)

$1,400,000.00 USD – E-League Season 1

Despite being possibly one of if not the most viewed and active competitive esports title in the world, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive sits at the 5th biggest prize given away in 2016. The game developers Valve received criticism for the lack of prize money in the majors (World Championships) they sponsor, with previous events capped at $250,000.00.

Most Counter-Strike fans blamed the hugely popular game title Dota 2 stealing the company’s primary focus in their annual multi-million dollar cash prize tournament “The International”.

Thanks to the modern tool of crowdfunding via in-game items and compendiums Counter-Strike managed to hit the $1 million mark for the first time at MLG Major Championship in Columbus this year.

mgl2016 — MLG Columbus Counter-Strike Finals 2016

E-league season 1 held in Atlanta USA was a televised $1,400,000.00 tournament won by fan favourites Polish team Virtus.Pro earning $400,000.00 and are also the longest standing professional lineup in Counter-Strike: GO.

The Polish side took home $80,000 each against favourites at the time Swedish team Fnatic who collected $140,000.00 for their runner-up pay cheque. Although E-League season 1 happened in early 2016, another season of E-League managed to finish within the same year with a $1,100,000.00 competition won by American side Optic Gaming.

bc647a350d9b5797df22d272bc62441b — Team Virtus.Pro Celebrating after winning $80,000 each.

Fun Fact – E-League is the only third party esports event organiser in the top five where the game developer did not help raise or hosted the tournament. Thus making E-League the only event organiser to run a competition that is not considered a Major or World Championship for the game for such a large prize pool.

#4 – Call Of Duty: Black OPS III (Console)

$2,000,000.00 USD – Call Of Duty XP Championship 2016

Since 2013 Call Of Duty Championships have been the staple for the ever changing Call of Duty titles in Los Angeles for years. Each year a new release is rushed out to the public with the end goal of another Call Of Duty Championships to compete in at the end of the year.

The battle between the Americans and the United Kingdom esports team representatives have been former rivals in Call Of Duty championships for years with Americans usually taking the throne for the past three to four years. 2016 was a record also for the Call Of Duty Franchise breaking their $1 million prize pool record similar to Halo’s Championship tournament.

This year’s winners were American Team EnVyUs winning a record $800,000.00 split four ways in the 4v4 tournament structure in Call Of Duty. Each player walked away with $200k each, making it the single largest prize given to an individual player in Call Of Duty history.

call-of-duty-envyus — Team Envy.us celebrating after winning $200,000 each

Fun Fact – Out of the $3,817,926.00 prize money that was awarded in the past year of Call Of Duty Black Ops III $2.2 million went to Americans, with the United Kingdom coming away with a share of $882k, which makes up more than the rest of the countries in the world combined.

#3 – Halo 5: Guardians (Console)

$2,500,000.00 USD – Halo World Championship 2016

Halo 5: Guardians released late 2015 hasn’t had anywhere near as many tournaments in the past year as its other top 5 competitors on the list. Halo 5 with 31 tournaments this year has encountered problems competitively due to the lack of ability to create custom games reliably in a tournament environment.

The 2016 Halo World Championships Prize pool surpassed its record $1 million dollars previous cash purse of past years. Due to adopting the successful in-game item crowdsourcing methods to increase the prize pool for the World Championships. Halo 5 used REQ pack sales similar to Dota 2’s Compendiums to raise the $2,500,000.00 from the $1,000,000 set by Microsoft for the event.

On the 30th of October, sixteen teams from around the world converged to Hollywood, California US for the Halo World Championship 2016. The top 8 teams consisted solely of American rosters with the occasional Canadian thrown in the mix.

This year’s winners, American team Counter Logic Gaming accepted a cheque for $1,000,000.00. Halo has a 4v4 tournament style structure and each player managed to take home $250,000.00 each with 2nd place taking $100k per player for their troubles.

Team CLG Celebrating after winning $250,000 each

Fun Fact – The average Halo 5 tournament for 2016 did not surpass the $50,000.00 prize pool out of its 31 tournaments in 2016 bar one other time with the 2nd highest being $150,000.00 for the fading franchised title.

#2 – League Of Legends (PC)

$5,070,000.00 USD – LOL 2016 World Championship

League Of Legends Prize Pools may not reach the massive benchmark set by their rival game competitor Dota 2 but it may come as a surprise that League of Legends has the world’s largest active player base to date.

This year League of Legends adopted the common prize pool raising method through community crowdfunding within the game making the tournament being able to bump the overall prize of $2,130,000.00 to the new League Of Legends record of $5 million.

League Of Legends World Championship 2016 was a tournament hosted by developer Riot Games, in which sixteen qualified teams from around the world competed to determine the Champions in Los Angeles, America.

Team SK-T1 Celebrating after winning $338,000 each

The Winners of the event for a 2nd time in a row were the South Korean powerhouse team SK Telecom T1, receiving a cheque for $2,028,000.00. It is not uncommon for teams in League of Legends to use a rotating six-man roster in the 5v5 esports title, meaning the players walked away with $338k each in a six-way split.

Fun Fact – South Korea dominated 2016 World Championships with 51 qualified players of the 86 that attended the event, 29 were South Koreans who took home $3.5 million of the $5 million given to the prize pool. South Korea placed respectfully 1st and 2nd at the event and continued to dominate the League Of Legends Scene to date.

#1 – Dota 2 (PC) – Biggest Prize pool

$20,770,640.00 USD – The International 2016

The Largest prize pool in Esports History.

The sixth edition of The International, an esports Dota 2 championship tournament, took place at KeyArena Center in Seattle, Washington. Hosted by Valve Corporation, 16 teams won their respective qualifier phase and competed in the main event between August 3rd and August 8th.

These prize pools are seeded by the game developers (Valve) first offering an initial cash purse of $1,600,000.00, and the rest of the money is raised by the community that plays Dota2 via purchasing of in-game compendiums called “Battle Passes”. 25% of the proceeds from all “Battle Pass” sales go directly to funding The International Prize Pool, with rest going to Valve, the game developers. The overall purchases of the passes equalled $76,682,560.00…yes $76 million dollars were raised by the community to help fund the prize purse.

The world record-breaking prize pool for esports at $20 million was won by the Chinese team “Wings Gaming” who received a $9,139,002,00.00 cheque. Each member consisting of five players took home over $1.8 million each. Dota recently entered into The Guinness World Records including the monetary prize record in their 2017 Gamer’s Edition, which includes the top speed runs, live streams, cosplays and other gaming-related events.

dota-2-international-prizepool — The International 2016 Prize Pool Distribution

The runners-up pain quickly eased after accepting their cheque of $3,427,126.00 awarding each player in the global mix team Digital Chaos $685,425.00 each for placing second. Finishing last is extremely disappointing but they did not leave the world’s largest tournament empty handed. Each team received $103,852.00 each just for trying, giving each player a comforting $26k each to help sleep at night.

Team Wings Gaming celebrating after winning $1,827,800 each.

Fun Fact – Dota 2 also hosted two more major tournaments in 2016 reaching prize pools of $3 million each. The previous two years of the International 4 & 5 individually out number all esports titles put together over the course of the two years at $18m and $10m

Honourable Mentions –

Pavel celebrating after winning $250,000

Hearthstone: Heroes Of Warcraft – Blizzcon World Championships 2016 – Prize Pool: $1,000,000. Won by Russian player Pavel, who took home $250,000 USD.

Team Ballistix celebrating after winning $60,000 each

Heroes Of the Storm – Blizzcon World Championships 2016 – Prize Pool: $1,000,000USD. Won by South Korean team Ballistix taking home $300,000 collectively.

Team Epsilon celebrating after winning $100,000 each

Smite – Smite World Championship 2016 – Prize Pool: $1,000,000 USD. Won by Globally Mix team Epsilon esports taking home $500,000 collectively.

Top 5 Largest eSports Games and their Prize pools in 2015

Scott Bednarski

October 15, 2015

XY Gaming - Top 5 Prizepools in eSports in 2015

XY Gaming have released an updated “Top 5 Largest Esports Prize Pools for 2016”

So you don’t think eSports is here to stay? Don’t think eSports is a legitimate career choice? Well let’s have a look at the largest prize pools in eSports history compared to traditional sports of today.

We take a look at the largest prize pools in eSports for 2014-2015, in the most popular eSports titles. All figures are in USD, and are based off the single largest prize pool for each of the 5 major eSports titles, from 2014-2015.

2015 has been a massive year for eSports, especially the competitive level which has had a dramatic increase in prize pools reaching millions of dollars as a standard for big tournaments.

#1 – Dota 2 – The International 2015 – $18,429,613

The fifth edition of The International, an eSports Dota 2 championship tournament, took place at KeyArena Center in Seattle, Washington. Hosted by Valve Corporation, the tournament began on May 25th with the qualifier phase and ended after the main event between August 3rd and August 8th.

The tournament awarded the biggest prize pool in eSports history, at over $18 million. The winning team, Evil Geniuses were awarded $6,634,660, with each player in the team taking home over $1.3 million each. This is a fairly large sum, which just becomes even larger after the same team months before this event, ended up taking out The Dota Asia Championships winning $1,284,158.

Hell even for losing the grand final your team became millionaires… actually coming 3rd, 4th, 5th and even 6th made your team over a million! Who said only winners are always grinners?

#2 – Smite – Smite World Championship 2015 – $2,612,259

In January, eight of the world’s most elite professional Smite teams converged on Atlanta, Georgia, to crown the best smite team on the planet. With a prize pool of over $2.6 Million on offer (as a result of their Odyssey crowd-sourcing campaign), Hi-Rez Studios is now officially offering the fifth largest prize pool in the history of eSports.

Yet again an American team were favorites, and won the event giving Cognitive Prime a cool $1,306,130 for the team to take home.

#3 – League of Legends – LoL World Championship 2014 – $2,130,000

The world’s biggest eSports title “The World Championship 2014 (also known as Season 4 World Championship) was a tournament hosted by Riot Games, in which sixteen qualified teams from around the world compete to determine the League of Legends Season 4 World Champions.

The winners of the event were the always strong Korean team Samsung Galaxy White, who collected a paycheck of a smooth $1,000,000.

lol-arena lol-winners

#4 – Call of Duty (Blackops2 / Ghost / AdvancedWarefare/ Modern Warfare 3) – COD World Championship 2014/15 – $1,000,000

Call of Duty Championship 2015 took place in Los Angeles, California, from March 27th-29th 2015. Actually they all took place in Los Angeles, all of the Call of Duty World Championships. Four years running Call of Duty have used their latest titles to host world championships, with a consistent prize pool of $1,000,000.

This year the winners were yet again – you guessed it – Americans, who have heavily dominated the game in world ranking. Denial eSports won, snatching $400,000 collectively against American rivals Revenge.

#5 – World of Tanks – WGL Grand Finals 2015 – $300,000

To round out the top 5 we have World of Tanks, by WarGaming. This final was played in Warsaw, Poland and was won by mixed Russian, Ukraine and Belarus team HellRaisers. They took home $150,000.

Honourable Mentions

Counter-Strike Global Offensive (CSGO) – ESL One Cologne 2015 – Prize Pool $250,000. Won by Swedish team Fnatic, who took home $100,000

HearthStone: Heroes of WarCraft – BlizzCon 2014 – Prize Pool $250,000. Won by American Firebat, who took the top prize of $100,000 for himself.

World of Warcraft – BlizzCon 2014 – Prize Pool $250,000. Won by European team Bleached Bones, that split $120,000 top prize 3 ways.

Make sure you let everyone you know gaming is a real sport and pays like one. So jump on XY Gaming and start working your way up the ranks, forging your own path to fame and riches.

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