diff --git a/lib/jquery.easytabs.js b/lib/jquery.easytabs.js
index 80a84dc..d11c15e 100644
--- a/lib/jquery.easytabs.js
+++ b/lib/jquery.easytabs.js
@@ -290,7 +290,7 @@
     // Make sure hash is a valid id value (admittedly strict in that HTML5 allows almost anything without a space)
     // but jQuery has issues with such id values anyway, so we can afford to be strict here.
     plugin.validId = function(id) {
-      return id.substr(1).match(/^[A-Za-z]+[A-Za-z0-9\-_:\.].$/);
+      return id.substr(1).match(/^[A-Za-z][A-Za-z0-9\-_:\.]*$/);
     };
 
     // Select matching tab when URL hash changes