Doing Good in a Divided Land: Gaming Pioneer Brings Charity Poker Home to Israel

^{A charity tournament for the IDFWO is coming to Israel on Wednesday, and the man making it happen has a storied career in gaming. (Photo: courtesy of Shalem Foundation)}

Ory Weihs has helped build some of the most powerful engines in the online gaming world. But these days, he’s less concerned with clicks and conversions, and more focused on orphans, widows, and the tangible impact of giving back.

The 44-year-old Israeli entrepreneur, who founded gaming affiliate powerhouse XLMedia in 2003, is organizing a charity poker tournament on Wednesday outside Tel Aviv. The event will benefit the Israeli Defense Forces Widows and Orphans Organization (IDFWO), and it's being run through Weihs’s Czech-Israeli nonprofit Shalem Foundation.

“This is the first time we’re doing it in Israel,” Weihs told Casinos.com from his home in Prague. “So if this is a success, it will hopefully become an annual thing.”

Poker for a Purpose

The tournament will take place at House Poker School, a licensed poker academy operating just outside Tel Aviv. (Real-money poker is illegal in Israel, but “instructional” tournaments like this one are allowed.)

The buy-in is 1,000 shekels (about €250 or $280), with 60% going directly to the IDFWO. The remaining 40% will fund the prize pool. Weihs said his goal is 100 entries. That’s not just a symbolic target; the first 100 buy-ins will be matched by Shalem, the Scheinberg family (founders of PokerStars), and a group of Weihs’s friends and colleagues from the gaming world. In total, the effort could raise 240,000 shekels (nearly $70,000) for the nonprofit.

So far, more than 50 seats have been purchased, many by companies and donors offering tournament seats to adult orphans or residents of towns along the Gaza border who were displaced during the war.

Unlike many charity poker events, no sponsored poker pros are being flown in or having their buy-in comped.

“I don’t want a single shekel from someone buying into the poker tournament to be paying for anyone’s hotel room,” Weihs said.

A Veteran’s Drive

Weihs served in the Israeli military more than 20 years ago, with deployments in Lebanon and the West Bank. When Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, he was at home in Prague, where he has lived since 2011, raising his family.

The Jewish holiday Sukkot was coming to a close. And though Weihs said he generally doesn’t pay attention to news on Saturdays -- opting instead to spend time with his kids -- he did hear something horrifying had happened in Israel, and quickly began to realize it was not a typical attack. 

“Usually we’ve had every couple years some kind of trigger for a conflict that lasts a few weeks or a few months,” Weihs said. “But this was something different, something none of us thought was possible.”

Although no longer an active reservist, Weihs said he felt an urge to take action. “I had extreme FOMO,” he said. "I was on the brink of buying myself a plane ticket" and going to Israel to join the response, even though he had been officially discharged from the military five years earlier. 

But with kids and family in the Czech Republic, he had to consider another option. This personal dilemma ultimately became a catalyst leading to the creation of the Shalem Foundation with his wife, Anna Meissner, a social entrepreneur with a longtime focus on educational causes.

Weihs and Meissner formally launched Shalem in 2024 to consolidate years of giving and provide their philanthropic endeavors with more structure, more purpose, and allowing them to level up donations.

“Just sending money around is generally easy. But doing so in a structured, business-like way is not," Weihs recalled. "This isn’t about virtue signaling. It’s about making sure money gets to where it needs to go.”

While the IDFWO remains a major focus -- and the sole recipient of poker tournament funds -- Shalem also supports Druze veterans, mental health initiatives for PTSD sufferers, and other educational support for families displaced by conflict.

Business Roots, Philanthropic Growth

Weihs has spent most of his adult life building scalable systems.

He founded XLMedia in 2003 and served as CEO from 2008 until 2019, growing the company from a small affiliate network into a global digital marketing powerhouse that ultimately listed on the London Stock Exchange. The company specializes in acquiring and monetizing web traffic, primarily in the online gambling, gaming, and financial services sectors.

After stepping down as CEO, Weihs remained a Non-Executive Director at XLMedia and went on to launch Team Odeon in 2020, a performance marketing firm focused on higher education and vocational training. He also acts as an investor and advisor across the SaaS, gaming, and digital media industries.

Now, he’s applying that same business-minded rigor to Shalem.

“There are a lot of good causes people send money to,” he said, “but it’s not always clear how donations are being used.”

Shalem follows a “zero-overhead” model. All operational costs are covered by Weihs and Meissner, with 100% of outside donations going directly to the intended recipients.

“Any cent and any currency that comes in from donors will be used exclusively to fund our causes,” Weihs said.

Daniel Negreanu with Anna Meissner and Ory Weihs at the Shalem for Israel tournament in the Bahamas. (Photo: courtesy of Shalem Foundation)

Bahamas Backstory

Wednesday’s event follows a higher stakes poker fundraiser Weihs helped organize in December, when Shalem hosted a $10,000 buy-in tournament at the World Series of Poker Atlantis stop in the Bahamas. 

That event raised $140,000 for IDFWO and attracted several of poker’s biggest names, including Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, Ari Engel, PokerStars founder Isai Scheinberg and friend of Casinos.com Robbie Strazynski.

But the event also attracted controversy.

Poker pro Justin Bonomo publicly criticized the WSOP for permitting what he perceived to be a politically partisan event during a time of heightened conflict. The debate intensified after Bonomo was not allowed to wear a keffiyeh at a televised final table -- a decision he said revealed a double standard.

Weihs pushed back.

“Yes, Israel is a polarizing topic,” Weihs said. “But orphans and widows shouldn’t be polarizing. This isn’t about the Israeli government or military policy. They're just orphans and widows.” 

Model for the Future?

Last week, Weihs spent two days in the Czech mountains with 18 Israeli orphans, many of them younger siblings of children he hosted on a similar trip back in 2019. “It’s not just about giving,” he said. “It’s about showing up.”

That same mindset applies to the poker tournament. Players will sit alongside adult orphans and civilians displaced from towns in southern Israel. The CEO of IDFWO is expected to attend, and the evening is designed to foster connection as much as it is to raise funds.

“Poker is just a means to an end,” Weihs said.

The event’s “zero overhead” model reflects the foundation’s broader approach. No one is paid to participate. No marketing agency is taking a cut. Not even the venue is charging a fee. And the donation-matching structure -- tripling every shekel raised -- turns a field of 100 players into a potentially game-changing fundraiser.

The Tel Aviv tournament is the Shalem Foundation’s first poker event on Israeli soil, and Weihs hopes it won’t be the last.

“We are avid poker players. We love the game.” Weihs said, “We’re appreciative to find a way that combines two of our passions, which is doing good for worthy causes and playing poker and having a fun night with poker players.” 

Shalem founders Anna Meissner and Ory Weihs believe in the power of poker to bring people looking to do good to the table. (Photo: Robbie Strazynski / courtesy of Shalem Foundation)