Gold and experience

Where gold and experience come from, how last hitting, bounties and shared experience work, and why farm matters as much as kills.

Gold buys items; experience raises your level, which unlocks ability ranks and grows your base stats. A champion with more of both simply wins most trades.

Sources of gold

Source	How you get it
Minions	Land the killing blow, the last hit. A minion that dies to anything else pays nobody.
Passive gold	Every player earns a slow trickle over time, from early in the game.
Champion kills	The killer gets the bounty; assisting teammates share a part of it.
Turrets and plates	Breaking an outer turret's plates pays the champions nearby. A destroyed turret pays the whole team.
Monsters	Jungle camps pay whoever kills them. Epic monsters pay the team, some only the killer.
Support quest	The support's starting item earns gold from attacking enemies and upgrades as it fills.

Last hitting

Farm, or CS (creep score), is the count of minions and monsters you have killed. It is the biggest steady source of gold in the game: two or three full waves are worth about one champion kill, and a new wave arrives every half minute. Players who keep their CS high without dying out-earn players who chase kills.

Bounties

A champion on a kill streak carries a larger bounty, and whoever ends the streak collects it, a shutdown.
A team that falls far behind sees objective bounties appear on turrets and epic monsters, paying extra if they take them. It is the game's built-in comeback mechanic.
A champion who keeps dying is worth less and less to kill.

Experience

Experience works differently from gold: you do not need the last hit. Any enemy minion or champion that dies near you gives you experience, split between the allied champions in range. That is why two players in one lane level more slowly than one player alone, and why solo laners out-level the bot lane duo.

Levels unlock ability points. Ultimates open at level 6 and rank up at 11 and 16 for most champions.
The level cap is 18. In the 2026 season the top lane's role quest can raise it further for that player.
A champion who falls behind in level gains extra experience from killing higher-level enemies, which helps them catch up.

Spending it

Gold only turns into power when you spend it. A recall with enough gold for a component is often worth more than staying in lane: the item catalogue shows what each component costs and builds into.