diff --git a/src/packages/gfm.tmbundle/Syntaxes/gfm.cson b/src/packages/gfm.tmbundle/Syntaxes/gfm.cson
index 2a4daac4b..06e88a19a 100644
--- a/src/packages/gfm.tmbundle/Syntaxes/gfm.cson
+++ b/src/packages/gfm.tmbundle/Syntaxes/gfm.cson
@@ -43,7 +43,7 @@
       '2': 'name': 'markup.underline.gfm'
   }
   {
-    'match': '^\\s*(\\*)\\s+'
+    'match': '^\\s*(\\*)[ \\t]+'
     'captures':
       '1': 'name': 'constant.gfm'
   }
diff --git a/src/packages/gfm.tmbundle/spec/gfm-spec.coffee b/src/packages/gfm.tmbundle/spec/gfm-spec.coffee
index 2a67ff044..5e200c4b1 100644
--- a/src/packages/gfm.tmbundle/spec/gfm-spec.coffee
+++ b/src/packages/gfm.tmbundle/spec/gfm-spec.coffee
@@ -60,6 +60,9 @@ describe "GitHub Flavored Markdown grammar", ->
     expect(tokens[5]).toEqual value: ")", scopes: ["source.gfm"]
 
   it "tokenizes lists", ->
+    {tokens} = grammar.tokenizeLine("*Item 1")
+    expect(tokens[0]).toEqual value: "*Item 1", scopes: ["source.gfm"]
+
     {tokens} = grammar.tokenizeLine("  * Item 1")
     expect(tokens[0]).toEqual value: "  ", scopes: ["source.gfm"]
     expect(tokens[1]).toEqual value: "*", scopes: ["source.gfm", "constant.gfm"]