This is a result of Singmaster (American Math Monthly, 1971). Here is his proof ($N(a)$ is the number of times $a$ appears.) This result has since been much improved, see the [wikipedia article on Singmaster's conjecture.][1] [![enter image description here][3]][3] To elaborate somewhat, Abbott-Erdos-Hanson show: [![enter image description here][2]][2] and use this to show the better asymptotic bound. It is not quite clear how to use this to get better bounds for all $t.$ [1]: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Singmaster%27s_conjecture [2]: https://i.sstatic.net/QAuRx.png [3]: https://i.sstatic.net/MrceL.png