Cos....u are with some 'mainstream' supplier (Virgin) that relies on their customer base not really having a clue about what makes a quality connection, or even caring, but who are impressed by big numbers all the same.
If you have just tested your connection, then you are most likely getting bandwidth bottlenecked due to it being peak internet time. If you had been downloading and went over more than 2Gb or whatever this evening, then your bandwidth would be bottlenecked down to about 2Mb/s (200KBPs download speed).
Having said that, 9Mb is around 15-20 times more bandwidth than you actually need for online gaming. Far more important is latency, stutter, and packet loss. These are all factors that wireless will have a negative impact on.
Turn off the poison microwave transmitter and get an Ethernet cable and a Powerline adapter instead. Now and again I feel it necessary to say this, but using wireless internet is not just having a negative impact on your connectivity, but also on your health, and on the health of your neighbour's.
That's right! See that 5 year old kid whose head lies down right next to your wireless router with a few inches of plasterboard in between? You are giving him brain cancer.