A lottery winner is set to receive a lump sum payment of $140.6million (£113.1million), but, although life-changing, the pay-off amounts to less than half of what she actually won.
Lerynne West of Dexter, Iowa, was one of two winners of a nearly $700m (£563.2m) Powerball prize.
The 51-year-old would share the $687.8m (£553.4m) prize with the second winner, however, she ended up getting less than half of that as she had two options for receiving the money.
The first option was an annuity worth $343.9m paid in 30 graduated payments over 29 years.
However, federal withholding of 24 percent and a state withholding of 5 percent would be applied to each payment, reducing the overall amount Ms West would receive over the years.
The second option was a lump sum payment of $198.1m (£159.4m) before taxes, which amounted to $140.6m (£113.1m) after taxes.
Ms West discovered her victory in an eventful and somewhat surprising manner.
Initially, one of her sisters had to send her a picture of her winning ticket because she had left it in her sister's truck.
Ms West then entered her numbers into the Iowa Lottery website, only to find that nothing matched.
Confused and thinking that she had made a mistake, Ms West corrected the date she had entered and tried again.
This time, the numbers appeared in red, indicating that she had indeed won.
She described the moment saying, "It was red, red, red, red, red, red, jackpot, and I thought I'd done something wrong again."
Realizing that she was a winner, Ms West immediately contacted her sister, instructing her to retrieve the ticket from the truck and drive to meet her.
She eagerly exclaimed, "Get that ticket, get in your truck and get up here now. And drive slow."
Ms West has shared her plans for the money she won from the Powerball jackpot.
She expressed her intention to use some of her winnings to help her family, which includes her mother, seven brothers and sisters, three daughters, and six grandchildren.
Additionally, Ms West mentioned that she had started a charitable foundation in honour of her late grandson, Callum, who was born prematurely and lived for one day.
She said that she hoped to win, however, "Once you have won and you realize the responsibility and, you know, just the impact that you can make, all frivolity goes out the window."
