2010/10/11
different kind of coupon collector’s problem
The classic coupon collector’s problem asks for the number of samples it takes to collect all coupon types from a sequence of coupons in which each of the \(k\) types of coupons has an unlimited number of copies.
Here is a different kind of problem: if there are limited copies of each of the \(k\) coupon types (say, \(d\) copies), how many samples does it take to collect \(t\) coupon types?