West said she grew up in a “very humble family” with seven siblings in Iowa and knows what it’s like to struggle financially. She worked in corn and soybean fields as a teenager, didn’t graduate from high school but earned a GED diploma and took night classes to get a college degree in human resources in 2006. She worked at a health insurance organization until winning the jackpot. “Currently, I’m retired,” she said. She plans to buy a new house and replace her car, a Ford Fiesta with 142,000 miles “that people have beat up.”

West bought the ticket in Redfield, a community of 800 people about 30 miles  west of Des Moines. “I played the lottery twice a week, when I had the money to do it,” she said. West and the buyer of a ticket at a Manhattan deli overcame odds of 292.2 million to one to win the Powerball. The drawing came only four day after someone won a $1.54 billion Mega Millions jackpot, the second-largest lottery prize ever. That ticket was sold in South Carolina and hasn’t been claimed.