Our Team
Dedicated clinical staff with over 40 years combined experience treating problem gaming
Dan Field, LCSW
Clinical Director, Co-Founder
Dan Field is professor at the USC School of Social Work and a licensed gambling addiction specialist. His clinical experience includes direct service to combat veterans at the Greater LA Veterans Administration and overseeing an intensive outpatient program for clients with stimulant addiction and complex co-occurring disorders. In his private practice, he has counseled hundreds of problem gamblers and their families and served as Program Director at the largest state-funded gambling addiction program. He now provides supervision to licensed clinicians through the UCLA Gambling Studies Program and has co-founded Stop Betting Sports, a training program for college and professional athletes.
Brad Ruderman, CADC II
Lead Clinician, Co-Founder
Brad Ruderman has worked as the Program Coordinator for Beit T’Shuvah Right Action Gambling program for seven years A state-certified gambling addiction specialist through the UCLA Gambling Studies Program, his clinical experience is marked both by working with hundreds of problem gamblers and affected individuals as well as his training at the Psychiatry Department at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. Born and raised in Los Angeles, he developed a severe gambling disorder while working on Wall Street and has since turned his life around and is now dedicated to a life of abstinence and recovery.
David Leong, LCSW
Clinician, Co-Founder
David Leong attributes his commitment to treating problem gambling to his own experiences with overcoming an addiction to sports betting. David stopped gambling for good in 2017 with Dan’s guidance and active participation in the Beit T’shuvah (BTS) Right Action Gambling Program. Since this time, David has become a licensed gambling addiction specialist through the UCLA Gambling Studies Program and has co-founded Stop Betting Sports with Dan. Combining clinical experience with empathy for the highs, lows, and despairs of gambling addiction, it’s David’s mission to help others find their way out of the cycle once and for all.
Yael Landa, MA
Clinician
Yael Landa has overseen the largest publicly funded gambling addiction residential recovery program in California for over fourteen years as Program Director of the Right Action program at Beit T’Shuvah (BTS) Treatment Center in Los Angeles, CA. In that role, she has guided countless problem gamblers and their families through the process of residential and intensive outpatient treatment, family-oriented addiction work, individual therapy and ongoing recovery support. Previously, Yael worked at EAC Inc. where she provided forensic mental health services to the Brooklyn Mental Health Court in New York. She received her B.A. and M.A. from John Jay College in NYC and is fluent in three languages.
Roberto Cruz, LCSW
Clinician
Roberto Cruz is a licensed gambling addiction specialist through the UCLA Gambling Studies Program, a first-generation Latino and a native Angelino. Working with his community as a psychiatric social worker for the Department of Mental Health for over seven years, he has seen firsthand the benefits of accessible, linguistically appropriate mental health care to under-represented communities. A longtime colleague of Dan’s, he too has been alarmed by the normalization of I-Gaming and sports betting and is concerned by the growing public health crisis resulting from its unconstrained expansion.