Ukrainian e-sportsmen have long been world-renowned figures in the cyber environment, who have been successful internationally since the early 2000s, but they have no official status in their own country. Thus, only in 2020 in Ukraine, namely on September 7, e-sports is recognized as an official sport along with football, basketball, tennis, swimming and other traditional sports. This event marked a qualitatively new stage in the development of e-sports in Ukraine. The creation of the Ukrainian Professional E-Sports Association (UPEA) opens new opportunities for the development of a modern e-sports ecosystem in our country, free movement of e-athletes around the world and hopes for a synergistic effect of this process for the entire domestic economy. Therefore, in order to effectively develop e-sports, defined by the strategy of its development in Ukraine for 2020-2025, it is necessary to explore the role and place of domestic cyber players in world e-sports and to form the most operational measures to implement the proposed strategic objectives. This determined the purpose of the proposed study. The article analyzes the current state of the world e-sports industry and determines the basis of the laws of its development during 2002-2020. The analysis is based on such indicators as the total prize fund of world cyber tournaments, the total number of cyber tournaments in the world, the total number of active cyber players in the world, the average prize fund of cyber tournaments, the average earnings of cyber players in the world. The role of e-sports in modern Ukrainian society is studied, and the level of its current development is established. The statistical indicators of the study were: prizes received by Ukrainian e-athletes, the number of Ukrainian active cyber players, the average earnings of Ukrainian cyber players, Ukraine’s ranking of prizes in cyber tournaments, the share of prizes won by Ukrainian cyber players in the global prize fund, the share of Ukrainian cyber players in the world. The place of domestic e-sports in the world e-environment has been clarified. The main problems of Ukrainian e-sports development are identified and the tools for achieving long-term plans for its dynamic development are analyzed.