The Five Biggest Winners in Esports History

In the past, esports players competed for gadgets or token rewards,  but today’s tournaments come with prize pools in the hundreds of thousands, and sometimes even millions. The rise of Twitch largely contributed to the increased funding for esports tournaments, and players can now compete for life-changing sums.

In 2019, a total prize pool of over $235 million was shared across 5,400 tournaments. Nearly a quarter of that amount was the award for the ninth edition of The International (TI), an annual Dota 2 tournament. Eighteen of the world’s best teams shared a fantastic $34.3 million prize pool, and the final winner’s purse was $15.6 million.

The big numbers will become even bigger, that’s for sure. If you haven’t tried esports betting, now is the right time. Learning how to bet on esports is not difficult, and the winning opportunities are growing every day. One of the most popular options is to bet on professional players, so we created a list of the top five esports winners.

Johan Sundstein – Dota 2 ($6.9 million) 

The Danish Dota 2 veteran, Johan Sundstein, is the most successful esports player of all time. In 2019, he got his team – OG – to victory for the second year in a row, winning $6.9 million. Sundstein, aka “N0tail,” had great paydays at TI8 and TI9 after long-running success as part of both Fnatic and OG.

Kyle Giersdorf – Fortnite ($3 million)

Kyle “Bugha” Giersdorf is a top Fortnite winner. Giersdorf first qualified for the World Cup as a junior high student and went on to battle 99 other players. His excellent skills brought him almost twice as many points as the second-best candidate (59 versus 33) and won him the Fortnite World Cup 2019, with a $3 million reward.

Since its release in 2017, Fortnite became one of the most popular games of all time and quickly found its place within the esports community. Its boom is what put Epic Games on the map, after all.

Peter Rasmussen – CS:GO ($1.9 million)

With one of the best CS: GO teams of all time, Peter Rasmussen, aka “dupreeh,” won the Valve Major in 2019 as part of team Astralis. This was the professional Danish player’s fourth overall and third consecutive Valve Major win, but it was the first time he won $1.9 million.

Lee Sang-hyeok – League of Legends ($1.3 million)

A South Korean League of Legends legend, Lee Sang-hyeok, is only 25 years old and is already considered the best League of Legends player of all time. Also known as “Faker,” he won the World Championship in his debut season and twice after that. Altogether, his earnings in League of Legends amount to $1.3 million.

Ian “C6” Porter – Call of Duty ($1.2 million)

The following top player comes from the US. His nickname is C6 or Crimsix, and he is a professional Call of Duty player. C6 won three world championships and over 35 big tournaments. Porter won over $1 million in prizes during the course of his career.