'We are carbon friendly,' says online gambling firm

DATA centres could be contributing to Guernsey's increasing carbon emissions, according to the States Energy Policy Group.

It wants to make sure that power for the centres is imported to minimise the carbon footprint of a growing sector – Virgin announced recently that it was transferring its online gaming division to the island.

But a spokesman for Sportingbet rejected claims that its Guernsey data centre was a major user of electricity. 'Sportingbet is fitting out the data centre with the latest server technology, which uses less power and is therefore more energy efficient.

'And in line with industry trends, Sportingbet is consolidating servers so that more services are spread across fewer servers which in turn will reduce the group's energy needs.'