According to the research data analyzed and published by SafeBettingSites.com, CS:GO has joined the exclusive club of eSports games with a prize pool exceeding $100 million. It reached this milestone in August 2020 and as of September 14, had awarded a total of $100.87 million.
Dota 2, a brainchild of Valve just like CS:GO, is the top ranking eSports game in this regard. As of the same date, it had awarded a total of $226.78 million.
CS:GO Largest Ever Prize Pool Was $1.5M, Compared to Dota 2’s $34.3M
While CS:GO awarded its total prize pool across 5,184 tournaments, Dota 2 only had 1,415 tournaments under its belt. The reason for this disparity has to do with Dota 2’s championship, The International. In 2019, this tournament awarded the highest prize pool on record, amounting to $34.33 million. The amount was split among 18 teams, a total of 90 players. CS:GO managed to surpass the $100 million mark because of its high number of tournaments.
On CS:GO, the player with the highest winnings, dupreeh, won a total of $1.77 million. In stark contrast, Dota 2’s top earner, N0tail, earned a total of $6.93 million. When it comes to CS:GO teams, Astralis took the first spot, making $8.23 million in 89 tournaments. Team Liquid came second with almost half of that, $4.62 million in 133 tournaments. According to EsportsEarnings.com data, Team Liquid is, in fact, the highest earning eSports pro team globally. As of March 2020, it had won $34.71 million.
During the first half of 2020, data from Unikrn shows that $32.5 million was paid out in prizes. Though this is much lower compared to 2019’s $227 million, it is remarkable considering that numerous events were postponed and cancelled in 2020. The highest earning CS:GO player during this period, AcilioN, won $117,688.