Gold

Gold is the in-game currency of League of Legends. It is used to buy items that give bonus stats and abilities to your champion. There are some differences in gaining gold between the Classic and Dominion game modes.

At the beginning of the game, champions are given starting gold based on the game map played and can receive more gold through various means. Actively, champions acquire gold through last hitting minions, killing Epic Monsters, destroying enemy turrets, and killing champions (or assisting). Champions also passively generate gold which can be increased by gold generating runes, masteries, and/or items. The passive gold gain does not activate until minions spawn (at 1:30 on Summoner's Rift).

In Dominion, minions grant more gold than in classic, but champion kills and assists grant less. There is no global gold to be gained, but gold can be earned by taking capture points.

Starting gold
Champions start with a base of 475 gold in Summoner's Rift, 825 gold in Twisted Treeline, and 1375 gold on the Crystal Scar and Howling Abyss.

These amounts are always sufficient enough to buy Doran's items, any form of Ward, Potions, and/or most basic items. This starting amount can be increased by 40 by the  mastery, allowing more potential combinations of starting items, or an additional starting potion.

Gold income items
Patch V3.14 introduced the term "gold income item" to describe items that generate gold (with the exception of, of which a champion can only own one of at any given time.

Passive gold gain
The gold a champion earns without actively killing units is called passive gold gain. Every champion passively generates gold at a rate quantified in terms of gold per 10 seconds depending on the map. This gold gain does not begin until minions spawn in each base (or until 1:30 in Dominion). Passive gold gain can also be increased by runes, summoner masteries, and gold generating items.

Base gold generation
Each champion gains a base amount of gold depending on the map:
 * Summoner's Rift: 19 gold per 10
 * Twisted Treeline: 16 gold per 10
 * Howling Abyss: 44 gold per 10
 * Crystal Scar: 56 gold per 10

Items

 * generates 3 gold per 10.
 * Note that this is the only non-"gold income" item, so it can be purchased alongside any other gold income item.

Gold income items

 * generates 2 gold per 10.
 * generates 2 gold per 10.
 * generates 2 gold per 10.
 * generates 4 gold per 10.
 * generates 4 gold per 10.

Masteries and Runes

 * The mastery grants an additional  gold every 10 seconds.
 * Greater Quintessences of Gold grant an additional 1 gold every 10 seconds
 * Greater Seals of Gold grant an additional gold every 10 seconds.

Killing Minions, Monsters, and Pets
Gold can be earned by dealing the killing blow ("last hit") on enemy minions and neutral monsters.
 * The gold earned from minion kills is dependent on the game time. As the game progresses, each minion is worth more. On Twisted Treeline melee and caster minions gold rewards increase by 1 gold after the 1st wave and 1 gold per 5 minutes after that. Siege minions gold rewards increase by 1 gold every 2-3 minutes.
 * The gold earned from neutral monsters also increases over time depending on when the monsters were spawned. In addition the largest monster in a minor camp will slowly increase gold value to a modest cap after approximately two minutes.
 * Pets such as or  will grant gold to the champion that killed the pet.
 * will grant 10 gold to the champion that kills it.
 * Certain kinds of monsters called epic monsters give gold globally, providing gold for the entire team regardless of which individual champion landed the killing blow, although the champion that does so will receive an additional 25 gold.

Champion Kills and Assists
Gold can be earned by killing enemy champions. The gold gain associated with a champion kill is determined by how many kills the slain champion has recently accumulated (champions that have killed many enemies without dying are worth more gold). When a champion is killed, the bounty ranges from 15 to 500 gold.
 * The last hitter always receives 100% of the value of the bounty.
 * An extra 50% of the value of the bounty is put into a gold pool. The pool is split equally among all champions who assist (by damaging or debuffing the slain champion or healing/buffing the champion that made the kill within 10 seconds of the kill). If there are no assists, the pool is lost.
 * An extra 100 gold is earned for getting First Blood.

Destroying a Turret
Whenever an enemy turret is destroyed, every member of your team receives 100 gold, regardless of their position or state. Members who contributed to the turret kill (by dealing damage to the turret or even by being nearby) split an additional 150 gold.

Destroying the Inhibitors/Nexus
Destroying an inhibitor or the nexus will grant the player 50 gold, but the latter is irrelevant, as it also causes the game to end.

Destroying a Ward

 * Destroying a or a  will grant the player 15 gold (includes the ward from  and  from a  or ). An additional 15 gold is granted to the person who provided true sight for the ward. This means that revealing and destroying a ward grants a player 30 gold total.

Champion Abilities
Some champions have abilities that grant them additional gold under certain circumstances.
 * passively grants her bonus gold for every enemy unit killed.
 * grants him 2 bonus gold per stack of Adoration consumed on champion kill.
 * grants a bonus gold if it lands the killing blow to an enemy unit.
 * grants him between 1-6 bonus gold for every unit killed (with a cheated average of 4 gold per unit).
 * grants 10 gold when used when enhanced by the mastery . (Mastery removed by 3.14 patch)

Items

 * grants 2 additional gold per enemy unit killed in addition to its 3 gold per 10 seconds passive gold gain.

Conservation
Conservation generates stacks every seconds, up to a maximum of 80 stacks. Killing a large or epic monster will consume up to 40 stacks and grant 1 bonus gold per stack consumed. Large monsters include:
 * The biggest monster in each jungle camp:, , , ,  and.
 * Epic monsters:, ,.

The following items grant Conservation:

Spoils of War
Basic melee attacks deal 200 bonus true damage to minions with less than 200 health, consuming a charge. Whenever a minion is killed by Spoils of War, the nearest allied champion is healed for 2% of your maximum health and gains gold equal to the kill plus additional gold. Requires a nearby allied champion.

The following items grant Spoils of War
 * - 5 additional gold, 2 charges, 60s recharge time.
 * - 10 additional gold, 3 charges, 30s recharge time.
 * - 10 additional gold, 4 charges, 30s recharge time.

Tribute
If your champion have not slain a minion in the last 10 seconds, the next time you damage an enemy champion with an ability or attack you will gain gold. Triggering this effect with an ability and triggering this effect with an attack have independent 10 second cooldowns.

The following items grant Tribute:
 * - 4 gold
 * - 4 gold
 * - 8 gold

Wriggle's Lantern
Unique Passive: Gain 40% increased gold from monsters.

Masteries

 * grants
 * Melee: 15 gold on kill or assist.
 * Ranged: 3 gold for attacking an enemy champion with a basic attack.

Seizing Capture Points In Dominion
Players gain 100 gold for neutralizing a point, and 100 gold for capturing a point, except for the first time capturing any given point, wherein every point captured is worth 100 gold. This number is dependent on the number of champions involved in the capture of a point. 2 champions will each gain 75 gold, 3 champions will each gain 63 gold, ect.

Capturing Altars on the Twisted Treeline
Gold is rewarded globally when someone on your team seizes an altar.

Selling Items
Items can be sold back at the shop for 70% of their total cost. Items that generate gold and Prospector's items only return 50% of their original cost; Doran's items only return 40% of their original cost.

When you undo an item you are refunded the full cost.

Gold Efficiency
Calculations are based on the basic item(s) of the corresponding statistics except in certain cases where no basic item exists for that particular statistic. The average gold per stat is based on the values in the chart. Note that an item is more gold efficient if its gold per stat is lower.


 * The gold efficiency of all items can be found here. You may also check each item page to learn their gold efficiency. Do note that on those pages, the gold value of each stat is based on the cheapest lowest tier item instead of the average.

Movement speed and armor penetration are not presented on this table because their values are misleading from the lowest possible tier with, and  respectively. It has been implied that the value of movement speed is around.

Postulate: Boots of Speed cost 325g and give 25 flat MS. 325 / 25 = 13g. Therefore, flat move speed is 13 g : 1.