I'm curious as to whether or not these Age Verification banners that appear on some sites are really "effective". That is to say, do these really help to deter/prevent users that are underage from reaching their website?
A common example of websites that may have this feature are video games that have 17+ esrb/pegi ratings, alcohol companies, and NSFW sites.
If anything, is there any way to effectively enforce ages on any given site? Does an "age verification" banner work? If not, what is its primary use?
Answer
Leisure Suit Larry was probably the first application to do this, and considering that I played it when I was about 11 years old, I would call it ineffective.
Making some sort of test to make sure that you are old enough, simply encourages younger users as it makes them feel more 'adult'. Additionally, the test was designed for a typical US adult experience, and also had the effect of filtering out adults of other cultures. My father for example, couldn't pass it the first few tries.
The other option is an age verification button. Nobody seriously thinks that these are effective. What do you think a 13 year old boy will do when he sees this?
The only somewhat effective method that I have seen for this is to verify by credit card information, and later on a password. This is the way that Apple and some adult sites handle it. Although it is effective, it only works in limited situations where 1) you have payment processing 2) people are trusting enough to give you their credit card information.
I have yet to see an example of a company doing this because they want to restrict younger viewers. In the USA, for example this is done on alcohol sites, but it is common knowledge that underage drinkers make up a large chunk of the companies profits. They clearly don't want this to stop.
The real reason behind all of this is legal liability. Companies want to say that they asked first, and so make have legal deniability if someone underage uses their product, or simply deniability to parents that don't want their kids to see something.
TL;DR: Do this if you need to legally, but it will be ineffective in confirming if someone is an adult.
This image sums it up: 
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