The amount of prize money in competitive Dota has almost doubled this year: Tournaments payed out roughly 31 million dollars in 2015. Of course Valve itself leads the way.

© ESL

Dota 2 has paid out 30,759,533 dollars prize money in 2015. This is almost twice as much as in the year before: 2014 saw a combined prize pool of $15,913,726. That means that Dota set a new personal record this year but the growth has also slowed. The prize money almost quadrupled from 2013 to 2014.

Valve pays out the most prize money

The biggest tournament of the year was of course The International. Its 18,429,613 dollars made it the highest paying Dota tournament of all time. The first of the seasonal majors, the Frankfurt Major comes in second with 3 million dollars. It paid out more than the International from 2011 to 2013.

But even besides Valve prize pools grew: The World Cyber Arena which just finished last weekend is the second highest paying non-Valve-tournament in history. 650,000 dollars were paid out. i-league Season 3 ($426,720) and the Game Show Global eSports Cup Season 1 ($330,322) also topped this years list.

28 million dollars prize money already save for 2016

The trend may continue in 2016. With three official Majors by Valve with 3 million dollars prize money each and the International which will surely not be worth less than this year, there are already about 27 million dollars on the line. The already announced ESL One Manila, MarsTV Dota League and StarLadder Star Series Season 13 add another million dollars to the pool.