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Gallium oxide (Ga2O3) is an emerging wide bandgap semiconductor with potential applications in power electronics and high power optical systems where gallium nitride and silicon carbide have already demonstrated unique advantages compared to gallium arsenide and silicon-based devices. Establishing the stability and breakdown conditions of these next-generation materials is critical to assessing their potential performance in devices subjected to large electric fields. Here, using systematic laser damage performance tests, we establish that β-Ga2O3 has the highest lifetime optical damage performance of any conductive material measured to date, above 10 J/cm2 (1.4 GW/cm2). This has direct implications for its use as an active component in high power laser systems and may give insight into its utility for high-power switching applications. Both heteroepitaxial and bulk β-Ga2O3 samples were benchmarked against a heteroepitaxial gallium nitride sample, revealing an order of magnitude higher optical lifetime damage threshold for β-Ga2O3. Photoluminescence and Raman spectroscopy results suggest that the exceptional damage performance of β-Ga2O3 is due to lower absorptive defect concentrations and reduced epitaxial stress.