Paxful has analyzed the highest-earning prizewinning esports players from around the world to see which countries have the most esports players per million and where the world’s top gamers are earning more than their country’s average monthly salary.
- China has the highest earning prizewinning esports players in the world compared to salary with gamers earning 1237% of the average wage in the country.
- UK gamers earn on average 225% of the average UK salary.
- Belarus has the most prizewinning esports players per million with 1011.4 esports players per million people in the country.
- The UK has 51.2 prizewinning esports players per million.
- Switzerland is the cheapest country to be a gamer when comparing popular console prices with the average national salary.
The 10 countries with the highest-earning prizewinning esports players
- Prizewinning esports players in China take the lead with the highest earnings compared to the country’s average salary (1237%).
- UK ranks 27 with gamers there earning 225% of the average UK salary.
| Rank | Country | % of average salary |
| 1 | China | 1237% |
| 2 | Philippines | 1145% |
| 3 | Brazil | 1014% |
| 4 | Jordan | 879% |
| 5 | Argentina | 557% |
| 6 | Bulgaria | 534% |
| 7 | Pakistan | 528% |
| 8 | United States | 515% |
| 9 | Lebanon | 501% |
| 10 | Ukraine | 493% |
| 27 | United Kingdom | 225% |
The 10 countries with most prizewinning esports players per million
- We analyzed the number of prizewinning esports players per million against the population of 109 different countries.
- There are more prizewinning esports players in Belarus than anywhere else in the world.
- The UK comes in at number 24 with 51.2 prizewinning esports players per million.
| Rank | Country | gamers per million |
| 1 | Belarus | 1011.4 |
| 2 | Malta | 565.8 |
| 3 | Iceland | 315.8 |
| 4 | Finland | 279.7 |
| 5 | Denmark | 274.7 |
| 6 | Sweden | 258.2 |
| 7 | Norway | 173.4 |
| 8 | Estonia | 156.6 |
| 9 | Latvia | 111.6 |
| 10 | Singapore | 110.7 |
| 24 | United Kingdom | 51.2 |
The 10 cheapest countries in the world to be a gamer
- To calculate how affordable a console is, we measured the retail price of each console against the average monthly salary in each country in this study.
- Switzerland takes the top spot in our affordability ranking.
- The UK comes in at number 20 when comparing the console prices to the national average salary.
| Percentage of salary | |||||
| Rank | Country | Nintendo Switch | iPhone SE | PC | Index |
| 1 | Switzerland | 6.5% | 7.6% | 16.3% | 3 |
| 2 | United States | 8.4% | 11.2% | 28.1% | 6 |
| 3 | Singapore | 9.0% | 13.3% | 30.7% | 9 |
| 4 | Australia | 10.0% | 14.4% | 33.7% | 13 |
| 5 | Japan | 10.7% | 16.2% | 34.7% | 18 |
| 6 | Denmark | 11.2% | 16.6% | 30.9% | 18 |
| 7 | Hong Kong | 10.2% | 15.0% | 44.7% | 25 |
| 8 | Canada | 12.4% | 18.6% | 35.8% | 26 |
| 9 | UAE | 12.7% | 17.7% | 40.8% | 31 |
| 10 | Germany | 13.9% | 20.4% | 37.0% | 35 |
| 20 | United Kingdom | 15.0% | 21.4% | 48.2% | 55 |
Methodology:
- The sample of esports players in our analysis consists of every prizewinning player from countries with $20,000 or more in historic tournament wins.
- Esports earnings are sourced from the top-earning players per country for 2019, with a maximum sample per country of 100 players’ earnings
- The retail prices of the products were gathered from various sources, including official brand websites and regional online stores.
- The cost of the gaming PC in our analysis is based on the cost of a Dell G5 Gaming Desktop with a GTX 1660 graphics card.
- Prices may reflect the retail price for a console that is shipped from an international retailer.
- Average monthly salary data was sourced from Numbeo.
- Index score – Countries ranked as a cumulative price ranking per gaming hardware; a lower score = more affordable country.