Brainteaser Interview Q - How many bars are there in the IU.S.?

Well there are many kinds of bars ...can you be more specific?

that was the question that i saw... no explanation, no nothing..

let's say bars = clubs, pubs, lounges, anywhere that you can drink at night EXCEPT for restaurants.

There are about 200 Casinos in Las Vegas lets say every state has 200 casinos 200 x 48 (YES I KNOW THERE IS 50 STATES) = 9600 for casino bars.

Now lets look at every major city there is about 100 major tourist cities( 2 Per state) we'll say that they have 40 bars in em 40 x 48 = 1980 for major city states

Now lets look at non major cities lets say every non major cities have at least 1-3 bars maybe 100 cities per state? (lol)

100(48) x 3 = 14400

9600////10000 1980////2000 +14400//// 14500

30,780 Bars or about 26,500- 30,000 bars

How close am I ?

edit Actually I was very close.

                     Total number of firms    Number of establishments.

All firms 48,353 47,787 Single unit firms 47,787 47,787 Multiunit firms 566 1069 Firms with 1 establishment 333 333 Firms with 2 establishments 170 340 Firms with 3 or 4 establishments 45 152 Firms with 5 to 9 establishments 11 69 Firms with 10 establishments or more 7 175 http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/IBQTable?_bm=y&-ds_name=EC0272SSSZ…

it's an interesting approach to start with casinos... although i wouldn't agree that each state has 200 casinos, i guess your estimate was pretty close..

any other ways??

Lakes! You could be like well there are 5 great lakes, those have lets say 100 bars each on them. However, there are other lakes + ocean We'll say other lakes represent at least 1-5 bars depending on how big. What about Ocean, lets say the beach front around America has around 1000 bars along the coast line. Then could say what about Golf Courses... etc every where known for drinking?

There's definitely not 200 casinos in every state. Most states don't even allow gambling.

Also, your estimate of bars in tourist areas is way too conservative. Chicago/LA/New York, 40 bars? Really? There's also definitely not 2 tourist attractions per state. Heck, name me one for either Dakota, Idaho, Montana, Arkansas, etc...

You may have gotten the total number of bars roughly correct, but that methodology is highly flawed

Ya you're an idiot who's obviously never been through a case interview before.

You guys seriously think balbasaurus was serious with "200 casinos" and "lakes"???