Top 3 highest-earning esports players of all time

Esports is turning out to be one of the most popular forms of entertainment attracting millions of people each year. No matter the game, people watch esports tournaments with similar interests throughout the year. Along with increasing audience, the prize pool of the tournament has significantly gone up to tens of millions each year.

Some of the biggest competitive esports games include Dota 2, League of Legends, Counter-Strike, Valorant, PUBG, and Rainbow 6 Siege. Tournaments for these are one of the most awaited events each year and are consistently active through regional qualifiers leading to the finale by year-end. 

‘The International’ for Dota 2 and ‘Worlds’ for League of Legends features some of the largest prize pools with The International 2021 reaching a prize pool of $40 million. As one can guess, winning teams take home a big chunk from these prize pools, and players are compensated accordingly. Needless to say, we have a lot of millionaires in esports simply by winning tournaments, let’s check out a few of them.

Here are the top three highest-earning esports players

3. Anathan “ana” Pham

An inactive Dota 2 pro, Anathan’s career is something that many people who love video games can relate to. To pursue a career in esports, he dropped high school and moved to China, his parents were not completely supportive of this plan, but his brother helped convince them.

It did end up paying off as ana went on to get scouted by a legendary team (OG) and become one of the top earners in esports. Boasting a prize pool of over $6 million, he currently holds the top three spots in the top esports earnings of all time.

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2. Jesse “JerAx” Vainikka

Currently retired from the competitive scene, Jesse Vainikka is a Finnish Dota 2 player who also saw his peak during his time with OG where he managed to secure two championships. Previously playing for Team Liquid, another strong Dota 2 team, his move to OG started strong with Boston Major.

He then went on to play and win The International 2018 and 2019 becoming one of the few players to secure a back-to-back Dota 2 tournament. As of now, the total winnings from esports tournaments are recorded as $6.4 million.

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1. Johan “N0tail” Sundstein

Speaking of OG, one can never forget the person who made it all happen. N0tail or BigDaddyN0tail was among the ones who brought everything together. His journey towards success wasn’t a fluke but pure skills as he started small before quickly rising in popularity due to his skills.

Despite that, the teams he played with always fell a bit short. After taking a break from competitive Dota 2, he returned to the new OG roster and surprisingly enough the team managed to secure The International 2018. He later went on to secure The International 2019 which featured the biggest prize pool in the history of esports which helped him bag a massive $7 million throughout his professional career.

Why are the top-earning players all from Dota 2?

Dota 2 features some of the biggest prize pools in the history of esports (single game). As mentioned previously, the tournament prize pools for ‘The International’ reached well over $10 million, although recently it has been half of that. The overall prize distribution in Dota 2 is $335 million, the closest to this is Counter-Strike at $157 million.