Photo: ESL

With the esports earnings market being dominated by DOTA 2 thanks to their monumental The International events, a couple of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive players have earned a place near the top.

With Kuro “KuroKy” Takhasomi taking the top spot with $4,198,203.61 earned from prize purses, the closest Counter-Strike player comes in at number 40 and kicks off a string of three according to esportsearnings.com.

You probably could have guessed it, the multi-Major champions Astralis headline the CS:GO earners in esports. Andreas “Xyp9x” Højsleth takes spot 40 with $1,463,191.80 and is followed by longtime teammates Peter “dupreeh” Rasmussen and Nicolai “dev1ce” Reedtz who come in at 41st and 42nd respectively.

A few spots down the list, Astralis’ in-game leader Lukas “gla1ve” Rossander comes in at 49th. The only players to have earned enough from tournaments to be in the top 50 earners in all of esports.

DOTA 2 and CS:GO make up the entire list until Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok makes his appearance as the 54th highest earner.

Astralis’ fifth player Emil “Magisk” Reif makes his appearance at 66th, still $120,000 more than the next highest CS:GO player Gabriel “FalleN” Toledo.

Astralis’ dominance in the earners list has, of course, coincided with the “Astralis era” in which the Danish squad took home the trophy at almost every event they attended in 2018 including the FACEIT Major and picked up the first $1 million Major of 2019 to pad their bank accounts.

With DOTA 2 continuing to receive their crowdfunding prize pools and CS:GO not, it’s of course highly unlikely we’ll ever see anyone at the very top from the popular FPS. The numbers still do an amazing job of showing just how big esports has become and how it can change someone’s life.

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