The Biggest Prize Money In Sport and Gaming

Whether you’re playing sport and gaming like golf, tennis, poker, or esports, you can win incredible sums of money. Millions of pounds are on the line, so let’s look at some of the biggest prizes on offer.

Tennis

Tennis is one of the sport and gaming that offer players massive prize money. November sees the ATP Tour Finals in Turin, Italy. It features the male players who have earned the most ranking points (or won a Grand Slam) throughout the year. Just eight take part in the singles tournament, and there’s a mouth-watering $14.75 million prize fund.

Just qualifying wins a player $320,000, while a losing semi-finalist can go home with over a million dollars. If the champion wins their three round-robin matches, the semi-final and the final, their overall winnings will be $4.74 million.

That’s nearly $2 million more than the US Open champion receives, and the winner of the ATP Tour Finals can even afford to lose one of their round-robin matches.

There’s also a player on standby just in case someone withdraws. Even if they don’t get to play a match, a $150,000 cheque will be on its way.

Playing poker can see players earning millions in prize money. It shows that if you are not naturally gifted at sport and gaming, you still have the chance to make money from playing games. Some people have done this by becoming skilled at esports or by learning the rules of Texas Hold’em poker.

Espen Uhlen Jørstad won the 2022 World Series of Poker Main Event in Las Vegas this July. The prize fund was $80.7 million, and Jørstad received $10 million. He’s probably glad he gave up his brewery job. The final table consisted of nine players with a minimum win of $850,675. Second-placed Adrian Attenborough won $6 million. The top five finishers won just over $25 million between them.

Esports

Esports has seen massive growth in recent years, and that’s reflected in the huge amounts of prize money that can be won. Playing computer games can also make you a millionaire.The Dota 2 tournament has a prize pool of $25.7 million, and for the PUBG Mobile, it was $22.1 million. In 2018, the latter had prize money of only $823,407. So, you can see the advances that have been made in recent years.

Golf

Golf is another sport and gaming that has huge prize money. Cameron Smith bagged the Players Championship this year, getting a cheque for $3.6 million. Rory McIlroy has returned to the top of the world rankings this year. He won $18 million in the FedEx Cup.

The ongoing power struggle between the main tours and the Saudi Arabian-backed LIV will drive up prize money even further. The 2022/23 PGA Tour will have a total of 47 tournaments with a record $428.6 million in prize money.

However, some on that tour may still opt to join LIV, where there’s $405 million up for grabs in 14 tournaments, and they only play 54 rather than 72 holes. Eugenio Lopez-Chaccara won the recent tournament in Bangkok and won $4 million and another $750,000 in the team event. Even the player finishing last in the singles tournament won $120,000.

When it comes to offering huge prize money, it’s difficult to beat Saudis. They hold the world’s richest horse racing events, and this year saw a $10 million prize for the shock 50/1 winner Emblem Road.

Boxing

Boxing is slightly different, as fighters can also receive a share of pay-per-view revenue. Floyd Mayweather is reported to have earned over $250 million for his 2017 fight against Conor McGregor, with his opponent receiving $100 million plus.

In football, the Champions League winners Real Madrid won €83.2 million in the 2021/22 season. That total is a combination of prize money and broadcasting fees. There are also over 30 million euros given to the club that tops the coefficient algorithm.

In the 2022/23 Champions League, a club that lifts the trophy and wins all their group games can win €85.14 million. The total prize fund is €2.03 billion. That’s far more than can be won in the World Cup. The world champions receive $35 million, with a prize fund of $576 million.