There are two main aspects to the WGT service.
- Advertising Content
- Game Content
The advertising content is supplied by the "big boys" - so they are usually cached locally on say an Akamai server usually. These are big bucks for these guys, they have put a lot on investment into the local rings and they make sure that the content they are delivering is fast and accurate - as they get paid for doing that. They work with all the big boys, same with GoogleAnalytics - these servers will normally work well with no issues, primarily down to the local caching and the spread of servers ensuring there is a balanced load.
The game content - is purely down to WGT and their business model. I have no idea what model they operate, so I have to make a guess, and no-one in WGT seems the least interested in touching base with it's end users on these issues. So we end up speculating and make 2+2 = 5 no doubt.
All I can report back on is my OWN experience. Based in the UK, accessing servers based in the US, I am aware I will always have some latency issues. So in my case, I can expect to see latency of 170-220ms depending on time of day. Very rarely gets any faster than that, due to the number of hops to get across to the Western Board .....
WGT do have a number of servers, I can see this in the network captures and the server names. I have not seen these change much, I tend to get onto server # 3, 4, 5, 6 or 7. Not sure how many servers WGT have in it's load balance farm, I assume they have a load balance farm.
As this is a client-server set-up, then once connected to a server you stay on that unless you log out and log back in to pick up a different server in the pool. I sometimes do that when it's bad, to see if I get a "less busy" server.
I suspect WGT just lets people log on, and it takes the hit with over-subscription. When this happens you get the server issues and the server queuing. Which is why in my network logs I see a fair chunk of "waits". This I must stress is directly related to a specific wait on the WGT server - the network log will show other commands being executed. So it is not a "internet issue", or a "local ISP" issue - it is waiting on the WGT server.....
Now there could be numerous reasons for this, but the "Load" messages we get are basically down to the WGT being too busy, that the client-side has timed out - hence why you get a retry option. On most occasions the retry works and you get the next set of data from the WGT server.
Now a well balanced load farm, would mean that as we reach peak traffic, more servers are added to the farm and the load remains balanced. This costs money - hence my belief that WGT are taking the decision to live with some over-subscription. Maybe get some revenue in, and then take on extra servers on a permanent basis rather than the usual cloud method of taking starting up / shutting down based on demand.
That is my "speculation" - but no idea to be honest, as WGT will not join in the debate.
Ultimately, the only sanction left to us end users is to stop paying for services. The problem is, this game, when it is working with no issues - is so darn addictive, trouble is WGT know this - so there is always going to be "punter" willing to continue bank-roll WGT :)