Put . By the law of total probability,For , termwise differentiation of the geometric series, valid inside its radius of convergence, givesTaking therefore yieldsSince , this is the zero-based geometric distribution with parameterThis illustrates Bernoulli thinning of a geometric count. Here , as .
For the reverse conditional distribution, Bayes' theorem gives, for ,ThusFor the conditional probability is zero. The conditional distribution of is the failure-count form of a negative binomial distribution, with successes and success parameter : the geometric-binomial posterior is shifted negative binomial.