I mean, it was a joke, but also that only works if someone wants to buy them. I've bought options (not on $SPY) where I made a quite a bit of money on paper but couldn't sell them and didn't have the cash to exercise so they ended up expiring. Especially on low-volume securities a big part of the risk is that you simply won't be able to unload them if you don't have the cash on hand to exercise.