The coupon subset collection problem

Abstract

The coupon subset collection problem is a generalization of the classical coupon collecting problem, in that rather than collecting individual coupons we obtain, at each time point, a random subset of coupons. The problem of interest is to determine the expected number of subsets needed until each coupon is contained in at least one of these subsets. We provide bounds on this number, give efficient simulation procedures for estimating it, and then apply our results to a reliability problem.