The effect of redundancy on probability bounds

Lower bounds on the probability of a union obtained by applying optimal bounds to subsets of events can provide excellent bounds. Comparisons are made with bounds obtained by linear programming and in the cases considered, the best bound is obtained with a subset that contains no redundant events contributing to the union. It is shown that redundant events may increase or decrease the value of a lower bound but surprisingly even removal of a non-redundant event can increase the bound.