It is often believed that investment arbitrations are filed because some form of political risk materialized, harming the investor’s interests. This is the hypothesis that the authors examine in this article, focusing on the oil and gas sector. They analyse which types of political risk, present in the host state, eventually lead oil and gas investors to file investment arbitration claims against that state. They find statistical evidence supporting the idea that bad governance and economic nationalism are indeed conducive to arbitration claims in the oil and gas sector. However, it appears that economic hardship does not have the same triggering effect.