I'm guessing this is technically challenging. There are VPN protocols designed to be difficult to differentiate from other encrypted traffic. As a result, VPN providers based outside the UK know that they can just ignore the UK law and probably won't be successfully blocked in the UK.
Enforcement, one countries laws don’t apply in another. Which is kind of why the age verification thing won’t work… There will always be some jurisdiction that’ll ignore things for profit.
Not entirely true. If I'm incorporated in country A and want to offer a service in country B, I'll have to comply with the local regulations. Furthermore, most VPNs have local presence in the EU as well. NordVPN is incorporated in Panama, but also has an entity in The Netherlands.
Many areas of law enforcement are whack-a-mole. There's no online gambling regulation so strict that it will stop unlicensed sites from existing entirely; that doesn't mean the rules are pointless or resources dedicated to enforcing them are wasted.
Sure. However, the effort spent vs. what is gained has to be considered. Not all games of whack-a-mole are created equal.
VPNs are incredibly easy to spin up, gambling groups are not. Within a week I could probably spin up a dozen or more semi-legitimate VPN companies. Multiply that by however many hundreds of people are willing to do the same. Add a few thousand more people willing to spin up completely shady 'free' VPNs.
The scale quickly exceeds what you can possibly block, unless you firewall the nation.
Sure. But majority of the people (as seen with China, or Russia) do not care about VPN and won’t care. So, it seems to me that this way it will be easier for law enforcement to achieve what they want just because the target pool is already smaller.