The best substrate for an argus monitor is dirt. Just plain dirt. Why? Argus monitors really like to dig. That's what they are good at, and they love to practice their trade. In particular, covering the entire cage with dirt lets the argus monitor digs its own burrow just where the conditions are best. A burrow in dirt is the best possible hiding spot for an argus, because not only does it provide security, but it allows the monitor to use the burrow for water conservation and thermoregulating like a monitor would naturally do in the wild.
The trick is, it has to be deep enough to make a good burrow in, 30 to 60 cm of dirt seems to work just fine. In addition, there are good dirts and bad dirts. Argus monitors prefer a sandy dirt, other monitor species like different kinds of dirt and some of them can be awfully particular about it. Some people are lucky enough that they can just go out in their back yards and dig up dirt for their monitors. When I tried this, the dirt quickly turned into a fine dust everywhere that it didn't get wet, and became a reeking sticky oozy paste everywhere it did get wet. If you can't get dirt from your backyard, you have two options: dig it up somewhere else and haul it back, or buy it. If you are going to haul it, you'll need at least a pickup truck bed's full of dirt for a typical argus enclosure. If you are going to buy it, you can mix together about 12 50 lb bags of playsand with 12 40 lb bags of topsoil for something that works reasonably well for an 8' x 4' enclosure, if you buy the right topsoil. Unfortunately, topsoil probably varies quite a bit from vendor to vendor and from region to region even with the same vendor. An alternative it so buy a truckload of dirt from a landscaping company.
The big problem with dirt is that it is heavy, you need a lot of it, and so you have to do a lot of hard labor to get it into your monitor enclosures. Other substrates can be used, but the difference a good dirt makes is so significant that I would not recommend anything else over the long term. For animals undergoing medical care or quarenteen, or for those in need of temporary housing, newspaper, care fresh, or cypress mulch or aspen chips can be used.
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