So the setup for the con was hugely expensive, they had to rent an office, get phones and electronic set up and running, and pay about forty people to hang around and act their roles. And then, each of those forty people would expect a cut.
So how much did Hooker and Gondorf actually profit?
$500,000 during the depression is like 10 million today.
But even then, the whole show including unskilled help would have been well less than 100K. That leaves about $400K total profit.
The rent was probably $250 for the apartment and gambling parlor, let's say two months is $500. I think Ziggy (Iggy?) wanted something like $1500 to rent the furnishings. Let's say $5000 for props and rent and incidentals.
The biggest expense would be the help. On line info suggests the average man earned about $500 a year during the depression, but even if they were generous and gave the schmoes $1000 each, they still would have been well under $100K.
After cutting in Hickey, Twist, J.J. etc, I would think that Gondorf and Hooker would have cleared $175K each easy. That would be a lifetime of money in 1935, equivalent to well over 3 million each in today's dollars.