On Friday Volta Mining was reborn as eSports Mogul (ESH), a company headed by Melburnian Gernot Abl.

Volta's non-executive chairman George Lazarou is now a non-executive director, David Sumich executive chairman, and Mr Abl managing director.

About 800 million shares were listed on Friday at 2¢ per share and a market capitalisation of $16 million, which consists of the $9 million shell of Volta Mining and $7 million raised from lead managers CPS Capital and Peloton Capital, unnamed institutions and some wealthy individuals.

A former online poker player, Mr Abl says it is "early days" for the gaming industry in Australia. But after seeing how big online poker became, he is keen to get in on the ground floor.

The listed company owns a 20 per cent stake in eSports Hero, a US company with an online platform where players can win a cash prize pool from each game.

However, when eSports Mogul sought legal advice for Australia they found charging online gamers to play would be prohibited in some states while playing a game of skill for money would be prohibited in other states.

To get around this, in Australia they will charge a monthly fee for access to an online academy though which gamers get free access to a tournament platform to play other gamers. The academy model means there is no minimum age limit, unless the actual video game has an age limit.

"There is no element of gambling in our platform," Mr Abl explained.

He also noted eSports has not yet been classified as a sport in Australia, which means gamers cannot compete for money like other athletes do.

As eSports Mogul has no direct affiliation with any particualr production studios, such as Blizzard, EA Sports or Riot, it opens the doors for players to train and compete across all game titles across all platforms - PC, PlayStation and XBox.

Most of the $7 million raised from shareholders will go towards marketing and creating content for the platforms in Australia and Singapore.

The tournament platform will be "ready to go within two weeks" and the academy will be ready by March 2017, Mr Abl said. They will start registering users in January.

The US company makes money from a small entry fee for each game – about 50¢ – and gamers are motivated to use it because of the chance to win money.

eSports Mogul has to licence for eSports Hero in Asia-Pacific.  The first countries to be approached will be the Philippines, Vietnam and Malaysia, and the ability to play for money will be worked out on a case-by-case basis.

However, he won't head to South Korea straight away because the market is too mature there.

"We will approach every region based on what we are able to do from a logistical point of view."

About 68 per cent of Australians play video games for an average of 88 minutes a day, according to a recent study by the Interactive Games and Entertainment Association.