A British teenager could win up to £2.3million when he competes at the Fortnite World Cup.
Jake Smith, 18, will be one of 100 players battling for the top prize at July’s tournament in New York City.
The youngster, from Mansfield, secured a place at the Fortnite World Cup after several weeks of qualifying rounds, where he was eventually placed in the top eight of 3,000 players in Europe.
First prize is $3m but even coming last nets you $50,000, Nottinghamshire Live reports.
Jake said: “When I knew that I’d got a place at the tournament I was absolutely hysterical and just couldn’t stop laughing.”
Fortnite is an online video game first released in 2017, where players compete to survive in a virtual world.
Jake first came across it when he had to take a year out of school after being diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome.
He said: “I was really ill at school and when I was doing my GCSEs I had to do them at home.
“So when I started in the sixth-form I had to take a gap year.
“That was at the same time Fortnite came out so it became really easy to get into and make friends and I was getting better and better at playing it.”
In February, Jake went to another Fortnite tournament in Poland where he stood in for someone who was too young to enter.
It was there that Jake was spotted by the manager of a gaming company who signed him as a player on a professional contract.
The youngster became one of a number of gamers around the world making money in what is known as e-sports.
He has no plans to go back to complete his time in sixth-form as his work in e-sports has become a full-time job.
He said: “It’s basically like a traditional football contract where I get a salary to play for this company.
“I’d always known that there was a career in e-sports but when I was younger all the games already had their very well-established professionals.
“I was coming into Fortnite at a time when it had just been released and so there weren’t any of those established players.”
Jake lives at home in Mansfield with mum Julie Smith, 42, and dad Darren Smith, 40, who will both be travelling with him to New York.
Julie, an operational manager for a charity, said: “When Jake first started getting into it I was a little bit concerned…
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