Esports Prize Money by Game (2026)
Dota 2 has paid out more than 382 million USD in prize money across nearly 2,000 tournaments, more than any other esports title. Fortnite (209M) and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (163M) complete the podium, and the top 20 games have awarded over 1.6 billion USD combined.
Data
| # | Game | Prize Money | Players | Tournaments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dota 2 | $382,278,251 | 5,069 | 1,987 |
| 2 | Fortnite | $209,108,965 | 11,509 | 2,674 |
| 3 | Counter-Strike: Global Offensive | $162,769,575 | 16,582 | 7,108 |
| 4 | League of Legends | $122,033,068 | 9,701 | 3,036 |
| 5 | Arena of Valor | $111,511,257 | 2,291 | 183 |
| 6 | PUBG Mobile | $89,785,122 | 4,312 | 344 |
| 7 | PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS | $67,037,708 | 4,017 | 642 |
| 8 | Rocket League | $59,814,113 | 10,566 | 5,594 |
| 9 | Counter-Strike 2 | $57,360,729 | 4,898 | 913 |
| 10 | Rainbow Six Siege | $49,885,253 | 3,084 | 573 |
| 11 | StarCraft II | $43,451,866 | 2,280 | 7,535 |
| 12 | VALORANT | $38,075,101 | 7,623 | 1,344 |
| 13 | Overwatch | $35,274,412 | 4,047 | 848 |
| 14 | Apex Legends | $31,803,237 | 2,386 | 740 |
| 15 | Hearthstone | $31,383,483 | 3,193 | 1,179 |
| 16 | CrossFire | $31,062,358 | 1,169 | 418 |
| 17 | Mobile Legends: Bang Bang | $24,494,452 | 2,391 | 159 |
| 18 | Free Fire | $22,258,992 | 1,829 | 100 |
| 19 | Heroes of the Storm | $18,466,719 | 1,335 | 507 |
| 20 | Call of Duty: Warzone | $13,854,810 | 1,287 | 407 |
Note: How Esports Prize Money Works
What "Prize Money" Actually Counts
The numbers on this page are cumulative tournament winnings — every dollar officially paid out at a sanctioned event, added up over the entire history of the game. They do not include player salaries, sponsorship deals, streaming income, skin or Battle Pass revenue, or appearance fees. In most esports, prize money is the most visible part of the money in the scene but not the largest part of an individual player's income.
Tracking is community-driven. Sites like Esports Earnings compile results from tournament rulebooks, official announcements, press releases and archived streams, then divide the published prize pool across the finishing placements. That is why the totals on this page run to cents: they are sums of thousands of individual payout entries.
Why Dota 2 Is So Far Ahead
Dota 2 has awarded roughly 382 million USD across about 1,990 events, which is nearly a quarter of the combined prize money of the top 20 games on this list. The reason is structural rather than commercial: Valve crowdfunds The International through in-game Battle Pass sales, taking a slice of every purchase and pushing it into the tournament prize pool. Single editions have crossed 40 million USD, a scale no other event has matched.
Counter-Strike is the only franchise that comes close, and it only looks smaller because the money is split across two entries: CS:GO (163 million USD) and CS2 (57 million USD) together total about 220 million USD. Valve retired CS:GO in September 2023 and carried the competitive scene over to CS2, so the historical prize pool now sits in two buckets. Merged, Counter-Strike would rank second, ahead of Fortnite.
Three Different Business Models
- Publisher-funded: Valve (Dota 2, CS) and Riot (League of Legends, VALORANT) run their own leagues and pay the prizes directly, often with crowdfunding or revenue sharing layered on top.
- Publisher-subsidised third parties: Epic funded enormous Fortnite prize pools in the 2018 to 2021 era, including a 30 million USD World Cup in 2019, then shifted to smaller, more frequent open events.
- Third-party circuits: StarCraft II and Rainbow Six Siege money came mostly from organisers, sponsors and team-funded events, which spreads smaller amounts across far more tournaments.
Reading the Tournament Counts
The tournament and player columns tell a different story than the money column:
- StarCraft II has the most events of any game in the top 20 (7,535), but averages only a few thousand dollars per event — a long tail of open cups rather than a handful of spectacular finals.
- Arena of Valor is the opposite: 111 million USD concentrated in just 183 events, roughly 600,000 USD per tournament, the richest per-event average among the top ten.
- Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Rocket League are the deepest scenes by headcount, with 16,582 and 10,566 players who have earned at least some prize money.
- Free Fire and Mobile Legends: Bang Bang both sit in the top 20 on fewer than 360 events each, reflecting the mobile-first scene in Southeast Asia and Latin America.
Fun Facts
- Dota 2's 382 million USD is more than the combined prize money of ranks 12 through 20 on this list.
- The 40 million USD International 2021 remains the largest single-event prize pool in esports history.
- Blizzard cancelled the Heroes of the Storm Global Championship in December 2018, which is why its 18 million USD total has barely moved since.
- Hearthstone's 1,179 events are mostly small invitationals and online cups rather than arena-style stadium finals.
- PUBG exists twice on this list: the PC version (67 million USD) and PUBG Mobile (90 million USD), which between them have paid out more than the entire League of Legends scene.
- Prize pools across the industry surged between 2018 and 2021 and have broadly levelled off since, as publishers shifted budget from headline payouts toward salaries and revenue sharing.
