exclude regex not working?

we have database with a lot of tables "ref.qbo_...."  (quickbooks online dumps). I wish to exclude them, cannot get this done. Tried:
 - regex: ref\.qbo*
 - regex: ref\.qbo*$
 - regex: ref.qbo*
 - regex: ref.qbo*$
Nada.
Any ideas appreciated, need to get this working. Thx