This doesn't work because it will also make hydrogen gas that will take up the air in the area you are in causing you to suffocate. I lost a very close friend to this please don't spread misinformation online.
With the right equipment, you can capture the hydrogen and use it to power your hydrogen fuel cell car. So not only do you get free gold, you get free fuel for your car as well.
That's the fun part. If you take just one proton off, you'll often end up with some gold that just decays back into mercury in a few days. Sell it for a quick prank.
Actually less than that because only around 10% of the gold created this way (assuming a natural distribution of Hg isotopes) would be stable, so you'd get a bunch of β particles too. I don't even know how Au-201 would act, and it would comprise 30% of the output.
What a troll - everyone knows if you transform Hg202 into Au201, it will immediately decay back into Hg201 while releasing about 606MJ of energy in the process.
Fake. The resulting Au201 and Au199 will promptly turn back into mercury. But, if you instead pull of a few neutrons to make Hg197, it will decay in a few days to stable Au197, along with a free neutrino.