Vulcun gives its first $100K prize to a fantasy esports player

Esports is getting so big that it’s even helping its fans make some serious money.

Daily esports fantasy site Vulcun announced today that it has awarded $100,000 to one of its players, who goes by the name Yjingtong. The site claims this is the first person to ever win an esports fantasy prize purse of this size. This is part of Vulcun’s attempt to bring attention to its business, which enables gaming fans to wager real-world cash on fantasy competitions for games like League of Legends and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. With the esports industry on pace to reach nearly $500 million through ticket sales, sponsorships, and more by 2017, Vulcun is trying to establish itself early so that it can capture a significant piece of that market before it experiences any major growth spurts.

“I have been with Vulcun since day one,” said Yjingtong. “And this site made me realized something that I am really good at. I would say it is one of my most successful achievements in my lifetime.”

Vulcun doesn’t plan to stop with this. It plans to award a total of $10 million during its 2015 season. That’s actually up from the originally planned $4 million. The company wanted to bump up the pool since it has had such a huge influx of players earlier than it was anticipating. So far, more than 185,000 people have won a total of over $2 million in prizes.

This is doubly interesting because that $10 million rivals the total prize pools for the pro competitions. So a fantasy player could, in some situations, make more than the people who helped them win that money.