It is funny that you ask me, because I am in the middle on this issue. I could argue both sides. About 2 days prior to Beanz's post I had decided on a personal level I was no longer going to participate in these games. It isn't that I am morally worried about it. - It is that they kept doing more and more a day. Yes, people get some free steem, but also steem is being held in steemsports wallet, the payouts are 50% of the reward. Meaning that account keeps 50% as well. 1 a day, to give some players some steem and make minnows feel good as they come on board. Wouldn't have been a big deal. So, the arguement is that there is a rewards pool each day which gets spread around based on votes and the SP the voters have. So, yes, when the same posts trend everyday, it takes away from everybody else's chance to receive those votes and the rewards that go along with them. When they start posting multiple times a day.... Obviously it takes more out. In addition, the steemsports account receives whale support, so if they weren't supporting that would they be supporting other things? There is no way to know.
When I really decided to get out of the habit of voting on those posts, is when there was a bunch of other accounts trying to do the same thing. I just decided that isn't what I want to support Steemit to become. A place where it is more popular to play simple voting games instead of writing and connecting. As I said, I can see bothsides of the argument.
On the other hand. Their are many who were having difficulty gaining any steem by posting who many stay around and be active due to getting some of this "free steem". The real question is the pain worth the gain and vice-versa.
Hm. I've also heard it argued that it's a popularity contest which would be great if the popular content was worthy content. But I've read some phenomenal pieces that ranged from a sad thirty cents to about 12 bucks, meanwhile I've clicked on posts worth over a hundred dollars that were practically copied and pasted from a couple different google searches on the subject matter with just a few sentences re-worded. They cited but still. I'd much rather read original content myself. So I suppose it doesn't really matter what the consensus is, I know what I'm looking for. I think what @beanz did took a lot of guts, and I happen to really like her, but I'm not certain I'd want to attract the negative attention or the ire of bigger fish. Love your diplomatic answer though, going to add you to my list now ;)
I thought her post was brave as well, you will find her to be a smart person, who thinks through things before talking about them. I respect her.
Although my answer sounded diplomatic, it is truly how I feel about steemsports. Mixed over the idea, and then they got greedy and took it too far.