You are in Vegas. Don't blow the water on grass. Rumors about turf causing cancer is just rumors without much to show this is a widespread problem. But there are different kinds of turf you can check into. Some of theme can't be all that bad if people in other hot sunny places use the stuff with no problems. If you aren't comfortable with turf, then yes, you can turn to mulch. There are good mulches out there meant for playground use. It can be more expensive than standard landscaping mulch. It can be good for a few years though.

Vegas is paying people to take out their grass. I thought they were going for a total ban on grass lawns.

There has been links to cancer and artificial turf that incorporated ground up rubber and tires, in soccer playing fields and sport areas. It was those padding substances that was the culprit.

I have not heard about the issue with just artificial grass.

I hope you will reconsider putting a lawn in Las Vegas. The only drought tolerant grass I know of is buffalo grass and it doesn't like shade. We raised our kids here without a lawn and it wasn't a problem. Trampolines, slides, swing sets don’t need grass nor does throwing a ball.

Fines (like decomposed granite) can be compacted to form a firm surface that you can run around on and even roll a ball on but if you want a softer surface bark would work. Below comes from the So. Nev. Water Dist. website. Personally I’m no fan of artificial turf because I worry about it ending up in the landfill in a few years but do see it going in a lot of places.

I'm looking for something softer for kids to play ball and run around on. Have you tried or tested other kinds of mulch or similar? I saw that buffalo grass does not do well in shade however it looks like "TifTuf Bermuda has been scientifically developed for superior drought tolerance, which indirectly contributes to better overall health and improved shade tolerance compared to other Bermuda varieties" and "Zoysia Grass is more shade-tolerant than most types of Bermuda grass and is good for both shaded and high-traffic areas".

TifTuf Bermuda and Zoysia may require less watering than more traditional lawn types but they still require regular irrigation, especially in the heat of summer - 1-2.5 inches per week. For me that would be a no-brainer - artificial turf or a kid-friendly wood chip playground mulch.

When I ran a small town parks department, we would order two kinds of mulch, landscaping and playground. Playground mulch is different in that it's cut/chipped different to lay different and not have the pokey bits or big lumpy bits that many landscaping mulches can have. We did have retaining rails around playground areas to help keep the mulch in that area. Three of the parks had playgrounds, including a little childrens park. Each park took a truckoad or two to refresh every 3-4 years. This depended a bit on traffic. The least used park was fine with a truckload every four years, the childrens park tended to need 1-2 loads every three years, and the biggest and most used one needed a couple truckloads every three years. Sometimes it could be put off till the spring of the next year after the next town budget got approved. I never tested the mulch myself, just observed lots of kids using the equipment and working with my guy on replenishment schedules for various things.

Depending on the age of your kids, you might only want mulch for a few years. I can understand if you have little ones. But by the time they are hitting double digit age they are pretty sturdy without needing mulch so much. Just observations again, but older kids fall down a lot less than little ones.

Another alternative if you can is do a deep sand court. Some places have groomed volleyball courts of deep soft sand. That is also a kid friendly outdoor surface. It's water free. Might be cheaper than wood mulch out in Vegas.

I like the deep soft sand idea that is used on tennis courts. I called a company that supplies that stuff but they said it needs to be installed on top of pavement for it to adhere to, and it needs to be mixed with acrylic resurfacer and color and be installed properly. This would be a great cost effective solution for an area that I already have paved, but I’d rather not pave this whole area and then add the surfacing on top of it. Right now the area has a bunch of small gravel on it which is hard to run around in since it’s too soft. I’d like for this to be an area where they can run around and play ball in, once I remove the gravel it’s just hard rocky ground/dirt.

No.. not tennis courts with pavement topped with a surfacer. Volleyball court. As in beach sand volleyball. You dump soft sand several inches deep in a large frame to hold the sand edges in. You dump it on regular ground, you don't need to pave and resurface an area to pour a lot of sand on top of it.

Dump sand in your backyard and every outdoor cat will use it.

Does sand or mulch blow around in Vegas?

I currently have a sandpit I’m going to be taking out. It gets very windy throughout the year in Las Vegas and it blows everywhere so loose sand is not a good option.

Yeah, if it's windy you have to have windscreens or skip the sand.