Alex Heitmann made $252,685 in 2017, making him the fifth-highest-ranked player on Skillz.
Categories

Skillz’s top 10 mobile esports athletes won $2.7 million in 2017

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 2 min

Skillz has created a platform for people to play mobile games for real money. And today it announced that its top 10 mobile esports athletes won $2.7 million in prizes during 2017. The top player scored $420,000 in prizes in 2017, placing her in the top 25 highest-earning esports athletes in the world, according to eSportsEarnings.com.

That means it’s not such a crazy notion to try to make a living as a mobile esports player. Overall, esports is expected to become a $1.5 billion to $2.5 billion industry by 2020, according to market researcher Newzoo. But most of that prediction focuses on PC and console game esports, rather than mobile.

Unlock premium content and VIP community perks with GB M A X! Join now to enjoy our free and premium perks. 

Join now →

Sign in to your account.

Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.