Seeding validation array

I am creating a lot of questions via a seeder. The format I am doing is this

DB::table('questions')->insert([
    'name' => 'questionOne',
    'rule' => 'nullable|max:50|regex:/(?=.)^\£?(([1-9][0-9]{0,2}(,[0-9]{3})*)|[0-9]+)?(\.[0-9]{1,2})?$/'
]);

Whereby I provide a field name and a validation rule. I was noticing that when applying the above rule, the validation would fail, stating

preg_match(): No ending delimiter '/' found

I done some research and found out that

When using the regex pattern, it may be necessary to specify rules in an array instead of using pipe delimiters, especially if the regular expression contains a pipe character.

As recommended, I changed my seeder to this

DB::table('questions')->insert([
    'name' => 'questionOne',
    'rule' => ['nullable|max:50|regex:/(?=.)^\£?(([1-9][0-9]{0,2}(,[0-9]{3})*)|[0-9]+)?(\.[0-9]{1,2})?$/']
]);

However, when I try to seed with the above, I get an Array to String conversion error. The way I am applying the validation is like so

$rules = [];
$questions = Question::all();
foreach ($questions as $question) {
    if (!empty($question->rule)) {
        $rules["questions.{$question->id}"] = $question->rule;
    }
}

$this->validate($request, $rules);

Is there any way I can get the above regex to work? One point to note is that only a few questions have this regex, if that matters?

Thanks

via kate_hudson