Market makers do this as a free way to cover delta risk in that direction. If you have +100 delta, selling 100 "units" (way out of the money options) is a nice way and doesn't carry any other greeks.
I've seen speculators do this, but they're playing with fire. I've seen an investor risk 9 digits to pick up $50k a minute before strike expiration, not realizing that the actual settlement is the next day (so adversarial events can still happen).