I've had Nord for a number of years and it's excellent. Don't recall what my last renewal was, but it wasn't expensive ($29.99 is in my head, but maybe wrong, for a 3 year period).
But even with Nord, some sites won't work. Happily, for my football (soccer) accumulators, while the apps won't work in Thailand, the websites do with Nord set to UK. But things like the National Lottery website still somehow know I'm outside the UK, even with Nord set to UK.
My guess is that the betting sites, if they wanted to, could determine a vpn is being used and therefore deny access, but obviously they want the traffic, wherever you are in the world, because they want your business.
I can get onto HMRC using the vpn too, which is really important.
But no way can you get on the National Lottery site.