Smooya Reveals Salary of CS:GO Pros S1mple, NiKo, ZywOo, and More

How much a certain CS:GO player earns is a question often asked by the community members, but not many have a definite answer to it. During a recent Twitch stream, British AWPer Owen "smooya" Butterfield gave a quick rundown of how much certain top players in the competitive scene earn.

Additionally, he even mentions how much some professional teams and esports organizations pay their players. Though there is no certain way to back these claims, smooya was confident about these numbers which includes pros like Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev, Nikola “NiKo” Kovač, Mathieu "ZywOo" Herbaut, and more.

Smooya answers how much do certain professional CS:GO players earn

It is not easy for community members to know certain things within the CS:GO ecosystem like buyout amounts, transfer fees, and even the salaries earned by a professional player. Transparency is still not a thing when it comes to CS:GO, but still enough information comes through from time to time from various sources which provides us all with a rough estimate.

Smooya during a recent Twitch stream gave away a lot of information related to the salary that many CS:GO players roughly earn. He started off by revealing the salary earned by players of the Danish esports organization Copenhagen Flames (CPHF).

"CPHF players were really underpaid. When they made the top eight at the Major (PGL Major Stockholm 2022), the players used to earn $2,000 USD a month," said smooya.

Following, CPHF's ninth-place finish at the Stockholm Major, the player salaries were increased to about $5,000 USD. This was followed by multiple reports surfacing about Complexity Gaming trying to acquire the CPHF roster and if this deal would have been confirmed, the players would have earned a salary of $10,000 USD.

He goes on to point out that there are at most just 10 players that make around $40,000 USD every month, Vitality's star AWPer ZywOo being one of those players. However, there is another category right in between where players mostly earn between $15,000 to $20,000 USD.

Speaking about the best snipers and riflers of 2021, smooya said that both s1mple and NiKo respectively make more than $50,000 USD every month. Honestly, this does not even come off as a surprise because the level at which these two players operate, any amount would be just right for them as long as a team or organization can afford it.

In general it is very difficult for the community members to find information about such things. However, smooya states that salaries are an open secret among all professional CS:GO players.