The top-earning CS:GO esports players have made millions to date, and 4 of the top 5 gamers are from Astralis who have been dominating the Counter Strike esports scene.

Esports is growing with every tournament being publicized. More gamers are tuning in to see how the pros are playing. But how can we measure the growth in esports? There’s many variables, but one of the most compelling variables is the amount of money earned by esports players. Particularly with CS:GO (Counter Strike: Global Offensive) we can see these players earned more money than most professional athletes. For example, 10th highest paid Handball player earns 250,000 Euros, and 10th highest paid CS: GO, player, “olofmeister” earned approx. $731,000 US. Therefore, CS:GO can really compete with some professional sports leagues when it comes to earnings. As well, esports is extremely exciting and if you haven’t personally gone to an esports event we highly recommend it.

Two days ago, Astralis players shared the $1,000,000 Intel bonus for winning Intel Grand Slam.

More: Astralis made a history at home!

So it’s no surprise that the top four players would be from Astralis. Astralis are dominating in every aspect of the game. Let’s check out the list of highest paid CS:GO players at this moment.

1. Xyp9x ($1,288,721) – Astralis

Andreas “Xyp9x” Højsleth is one fo three current Astralis players (dupreeh and dev1ce) who is a member of Astralis since Danish team was founded back in January 2016. All of them played together in Copenhagen Wolves, Uber G33KZ, Team Dignitas, Team SoloMid and of course in Astralis. They all have similar earnings, over $1,250,000 USD. However, Xyp9x played for Fnatic and other teams, so he gained a couple thousand dollars more than others. He started playing CS:GO professionally in 2012 for a Danish team called Xapso. Xyp9x changed several teams and joined Fnatic in 2013. At that time, Fnatic won one Minor and had decent results.

In August 2013, Xyp9x moved to the Copenhagen Wolves. Andreas didn’t earn much there, but he won three minors with his team. He then played three tournaments for Uber G33KZ. Of course, his journey in Uber wasn’t profitable. Afterwards, the most paid CS:GO player joined Team Dignitas. The first half of his path in the American team was pretty good. One Premier title, two minors, and several 2nd and 3rd places were won by Team Dignitas while Xyp9x was playing for them. However, the second half of the year didn’t fair well. Team Dignitas failed to make some significant result, so Xyp9x moved to TSM.

Team SoloMid was very successful in 2015. The American team won six premier tournaments that year. Alongside those titles, they won four Majors and achieved a bunch of 2nd and 3rd-4th places. Xyp9x earned a lot with TSM, but he decided to move back to Denmark. He joined the Danish team, that later became known as Astralis. The rest is history. During this time, prize pools increased drastically so Astralis had an opportunity to earn more money than anyone else earned before. Eleven Premier titles, two Majors and so many qualifiers had been won by Astralis. They won 11 out last 15 tournaments they played. Just two days ago they became the first team to win Intel Grand Slam and recieved the $1,000,000 bonus for doing so.

2. dupreeh ($1,285,922) – Astralis

Peter “dupreeh” Rasmussen started playing CS:GO professionally in 2012. His first team was 3DMAX. He played in several tournaments for them and barely earned a dime. The rest of his career is similar to Xyp9x’s, considering they played for same teams at the same time. He’s the 2nd top-earner of this cs:go top-earning list.

3. dev1ce ($1,253,423) – Astralis

Nicolai “dev1ce” Reedtzstarted started his career back in 2009. However, he played only a few tournaments from 2009 to 2011. He didn’t play in 2012 and that’s the reason why dev1ce earned $30,000 dollars less than his teammates. He also played together with Xyp9x and dupreeh in all tournaments they won which places dev1ce at #3 on the list.

4. gla1ve ($1,120,184) – Astralis

Lukas “gla1ve” Rossander joined Astralis at the end of 2016, so he wasn’t with the rest of the gang when they we’re winning tournaments. That’s also the reason why he gained significantly less money than them. He started playing Counter Strike for PENTIA in 2010. Since then, he changed a bunch of teams in 2011 and 2012. In this period, he won 6 Minors. He started in 2013 with Anexis eSport and then moved to Wester Wolves. Gla1ve didn’t have much success there so he decided to change several teams again.

In most of 2014, he played for Copenhagen Wolves. Lukas won three minors there and a couple of Qualifiers. In 2015, he switched few teams but fell short only earning a couple hundred dollars. Most of 2016 wasn’t successful for him which prompted Lukas to look for a new team. At the end of 2016, he joined Astralis and immediately won the Esports Championship Series Season 2 Finals. The rest is history.

5. TACO ($893,381) -TeamLiquid

Epitácio “TACO” de Melo is Team Liquid’s Brazilian player who started playing Counter Strike in local tournaments around 2011. Also, he is the only non-Astralis player on this cs:go Top 5 highest paid CS:GO players. TACO achieved the first huge success in Luminosity Gaming in 2016. He won ESL Pro League Season 3 Finals with them.He then joined SK Gaming and won several premiers and majors which was the most successful time of his career. He has been a member of Team Liquid since April this year.

Here are other Top 10 highest paid player:

6. FalleN ($886,462) – MiBR

7. fer ($883,562) – MiBR

8. Magisk ($879,481) – Astralis

9. coldzera ($874,573) – MiBR

10. olofmeister ($731,728) – FaZe

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