King crowns 2025 Candy Crush Saga All Stars champion and dishes out $1m prize pool

King has crowned its 2025 All Stars champion after more than 15 million people competed in Candy Crush Saga for a share of the $1m prize pool.

This year’s winner, Tiago P from Portugal, won $500,000 at the final in LA, besting the other nine finalists for the largest share of the prize pool. He also received a custom diamond ring from luxury jewelry brand Icebox.

The fifth edition of this yearly tournament kicked off on March 20th, 2025. From a record number of contestants worldwide, only those who collected the most purple All Stars Candy were eligible to advance from stage to stage.

New high score

"This year, Candy Crush All Stars hit a new record with over 15 million players competing globally, an incredible milestone for both our team and our worldwide community," King VP of consumer marketing for Candy Crush Saga Luken Aragon told PocketGamer.biz.

"Now in its fifth year, the tournament continues to grow, with players collecting 11.4 trillion Candies and completing 2.2 billion levels over five weeks of intense competition. That is a lot of Candy.

"And this is only the beginning for us; we're just getting started on what promises to be more exciting tournaments for our players."

Notably, the candy collected and total levels played during All Stars 2025 matched last year’s totals.

Candy Crush-ing it

The latest Candy Crush competition saw 10 finalists attend in-person from five different countries. Ages ranged from 26-year-old Hayden S to 59-year-old Ken N, the latter a returning finalist who donated part of his winnings to charity.

Tiago P’s win came against runner-up Ingrid R from California, who secured a $250,000 prize. Third-place Atlanta resident Aalja B received $100,000 in prize money.

"From day one, I approached the tournament like a mission. Setting clear gameplay goals and pushing past them, one level at a time, is what got me here," said Tiago P.

After the final knockout stage wrapped up, we spoke with Candy Crush's lead level designer Therese Sander about the methodology and problem-solving required to design All Stars tournament levels.