Lady Luck was present and accounted for when a woman from Sandusky, Ohio, won big in the state’s 50th Anniversary scratch-off game back in June.
The winner, identified only as Jeanne, dropped to the floor when she realized she’d won a $15 million jackpot from a $50 scratch-off card, according to the Ohio Lottery Commission.
When she took the winning card to the clerk at Friendship #83 in Sandusky, they “both just cried,” Jeanne said in a press release. “There were people in line looking at me like I lost my mind.”
Jeanne had two options for how to claim her enormous prize: she could take an annuity of $600,000 for 25 years (which would total $15 million), or she could take a lump sum of about $7.5 million.
She opted for the $7.5 million cash option, a sum that will actually shrink to around $4.5 million, Moneywise estimates, once she’s paid her federal and state taxes.
That $10.5 million difference between the advertised $15 million prize and her eventual winnings begs the question: Did she throw money down the drain by picking the lump sum?
The IRS requires all lottery agencies to withhold 24% of lottery winnings over $5,000 for federal taxes. On Jeanne’s $7.5 million purse, this amounts to tax of $1.8 million.