Filling three bins from a coin flip

Flip a fair coin until the first head. If the first head lands on flip kk, you receive kk balls, which you then drop independently and uniformly at random into 33 labelled bins. What is the probability that none of the three bins is empty? The probability equals 1M\tfrac{1}{M} for an integer MM; find MM.

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  1. Given kk balls, the chance all 33 bins are occupied is a surjection probability: (3k−3⋅2k+3)/3k(3^k - 3\cdot2^k + 3)/3^k (and 00 for k<3k<3).
  2. Weight by P(k)=(1/2)k\mathbb{P}(k)=(1/2)^k and sum. The cross terms become geometric series in 1/31/3 and 1/61/6.

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