A notable trend is emerging in the Counter-Strike 2 (CS2) competitive scene in 2025: prize pools are seeing a substantial increase across events.
Recent announcements from organisers of the Roobet Cup, and the Perfect World CS Asia Championships 2025 (CAC 2025) reveal a shared figure — each tournament will feature a prize pool of $1 million, a figure typically associated with traditional top-tier events such as IEM Katowice and IEM Cologne.
For context, CAC 2025 has doubled its prize money compared to its most recent edition in 2023 (in 2024, the organiser hosted the Major Shanghai). Even more striking is the Roobet Cup, which has quadrupled its prize pool from its 2023 edition. Both tournaments have brought their prize funds closer to the $1.25 million offered by recent CS2 Majors, including the upcoming BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025, the main events in the game’s competitive calendar.
While both moves appear to be strategies to attract top-ranked teams, events will be competing for participants: CAC 2025 is set to take place from 14 to 19 October in Shanghai, China. However, despite a scheduling adjustment to avoid clashing with ESL Pro League Season 22 (running from 27 September to 13 October), it will still overlap with the Roobet Cup which, even though it is a tournament held online, runs from 13 to 22 October 2025.
Meanwhile, another competitive circuit has gained its own million-dollar tournaments – 13 of them, to be exact. PGL has announced a $13 million Dota 2 circuit over three years, with a $1 million prize pool allocated to each event.
Prize pool investment was once a key strategy to attract media, teams, and sponsorship in esports. However, it became less central over at least the past four years. Now, the trend appears to be regaining momentum.
