Column: Victor Rocha still bringing the news after 15 years

He’s a Pechanga guy who grew up in Colton, the son of a graveyard-shift truck driver, a nothing-special teen who preferred playing guitar to playing sports.

But he has made good.

Fifteen years ago, as Pechanga battled state law enforcement and other casino owners to establish its gambling operation, Victor Rocha hoped to help his tribe by learning all he could about it.

Operating on the “know your enemies” principle, he started reading hundreds of online stories about Indian gambling to get a feel for what Pechanga might be up against.

Why not collect what he was learning into one website so others could benefit from his discoveries?

So pechanga.net, a Native American gambling website that is about more than gambling, was born. Starting from nothing – no sponsors, no followers, no money – the site attracts more than 250,000 users a year, racking up more than 600,000 user sessions and more than 2 million page views.