Angle shooting while checking?

[45suited]

Usually play online, so this might be a stupid question:

A guy in the 5-10 game at the casino was doing this and someone complained. The poker room staff did not find a problem with this, but I am curious as to what everyone thinks. When this guy would act on his hand, he would always have chips in his hand. (Tapping the chips on the felt without releasing them from his hand). When he checked, he would use the hand with the chips, put his hand over the line, the chips would touch the felt, and he would pause and then say check. He did this while looking at the other players in the hand. He would bet the same way, except after his hand touched the felt (the same motion he made when checking) he would release the chips.

Like I said, the management let him keep doing this. It didn't affect me, but it did seem to be obvious angle shooting and I thought the guy was a total idiot. He was obviously trying to get a read on his competition when he was going to either bet or check. Is there a rule against this at most casinos?