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Living the dream: These are the highest-paid professional video gamers in the world

Published May 29th, 2014 1:05PM EDT
Top 10 Highest Paid Video Gamers

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Each and every one of us had a dream job in mind when we were young. A small fraction of us actually grew up to live that dream, of course, but it’s probably safe to say that professional video gamers fall into that elite group. Want to be even more jealous? Many of them are making an absolute killing playing video games all day.

e-Sports maintains a list of the top 100 gamers in the world ranked by earnings. Of course, we’re just talking about prize money from tournaments here — the list doesn’t include outside income from sponsorships and other endeavors.

So how much money do top gamers earn?

No. 100 on the list has earned a hefty $123,800 in tournaments, including more than $105,000 from Halo 2 tournaments alone.

But that’s nothing compared to the top gamers in the world.

At No. 5 on the list, 22-year-old Jang “MC” Min Chul has earned just under $453,000 in prize money from 78 tournaments. No. 4 gamer Oleksandr  “XBOCT” Dashkevych has earned $453,300.

At No. 3 on the list is well-known gaming personality Johnathan “Fatal1ty” Wendel, who at age 33 has earned $454,900 from 36 tournaments.

No.2 gamer Danil “Dendi” Ishutin has won $455,600 from 43 tournaments and at the top of the list is Lee “Jaedong” Jae Dong. The world’s top-earning gamer is just 24 years old and he has already won $519,000 from 52 tournaments.

The full list can be seen over on e-Sports, which is linked below in our source section.

Zach Epstein
Zach Epstein Executive Editor

Zach Epstein has been the Executive Editor at BGR for more than 10 years. He manages BGR’s editorial team and ensures that best practices are adhered to. He also oversees the Ecommerce team and directs the daily flow of all content. Zach first joined BGR in 2007 as a Staff Writer covering business, technology, and entertainment.

His work has been quoted by countless top news organizations, and he was recently named one of the world's top 10 “power mobile influencers” by Forbes. Prior to BGR, Zach worked as an executive in marketing and business development with two private telcos.